Update: Valve has now taken it down.
Here's a "fun" one for you. The developers behind the free and open source RTS named 0 A.D. (pronounced “zero-ey-dee”) have announced that someone (they don't know who) has put it up on Steam.
This is sometimes the perils of open source, as there's a lot of people out their looking to make a quick-buck and they don't care who they burn in the process. To be clear, the version of 0 A.D. that has released on Steam (with it missing the second dot in the name), is not actually from the people who make the game — even though Wildfire Games are listed as the developer on Steam it's not them. Confusing right? Valve allowed it and approved it, so it does make me curious what legal checks are even done for this to happen.
I was notified of this on Twitter, with the official 0 A.D. account tweeting:
Turns out the only reason @YouTube added the game back is because somebody uploaded 0 A.D. to @Steam without our consent. It also explains the typo in the name…
Another tweet sent today by the 0 A.D. team:
IMPORTANT: The person who released the game on steam today is charging 8€ for it. Please do not buy it. The game is free and always will be. It might contain viruses and other malware.
I imagine it doesn't have anything nefarious inside it, otherwise you really would have to wonder what Valve are doing…
Looking on the official game forum there's a topic asking about it, the developers seems to be at a loss as to what is happening.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
ElectricPrism Oct 20, 2022
There are a few angles to this.
1. The Moral / Ethical Angle
2. The Socially Acceptable Angle.
3. The Legal Angle
On #3 -- the Legal Angle -- strictly speaking there is nothing wrong with charging money for GPL software.
In TL;DR; the GPL pretty much says "If you change a GPL thing, you MUST publish your code changes to SAID thing under the same license."
I'm not sure if there is a prohibition clause that prevents people from "re-distributing", or even asking money for the re-distribution. Again those would be #1 and #2 problems, not #3 as we are analyzing using strict perspective.
From everything that I'm reading the names Wildfire Games and 0 AD don't have a formal copyright either, so legally it's not like they can fall back on that protection.
I'm not sure if the uploader are even claiming they are themselves "Wildfire Games", or simply saying "This was made by wildfire games" with their attribution.
In any case #3 doesn't really matter because #1 and #2 will sort it out and Steam is adaptive to new problems and not some rigid bureaucratic machine that functions poorly.
In the words of Gabe Newell "Piracy is almost always a service problem"
So by that token, I think [ The Real ] WildFire Games should be looking to "fill the void" in the market and publish 0 AD themselves, I understand they may not feel ready -- but sometimes a swift kick in the ass can be a wake up call -- nobody is ready for the next stages in life -- by giving it your best YEET it is the way to success.
It worked for ConcernedApe when I told him before [ Beta ] of StardewValley that he needed to postpone Multiplayer until after 1.0 and give it his best shot -- he's an absolute millionaire and world famous now.
Life is not a dress rehearsal -- do what counts the most here in the now.
1. The Moral / Ethical Angle
2. The Socially Acceptable Angle.
3. The Legal Angle
On #3 -- the Legal Angle -- strictly speaking there is nothing wrong with charging money for GPL software.
In TL;DR; the GPL pretty much says "If you change a GPL thing, you MUST publish your code changes to SAID thing under the same license."
I'm not sure if there is a prohibition clause that prevents people from "re-distributing", or even asking money for the re-distribution. Again those would be #1 and #2 problems, not #3 as we are analyzing using strict perspective.
From everything that I'm reading the names Wildfire Games and 0 AD don't have a formal copyright either, so legally it's not like they can fall back on that protection.
I'm not sure if the uploader are even claiming they are themselves "Wildfire Games", or simply saying "This was made by wildfire games" with their attribution.
In any case #3 doesn't really matter because #1 and #2 will sort it out and Steam is adaptive to new problems and not some rigid bureaucratic machine that functions poorly.
In the words of Gabe Newell "Piracy is almost always a service problem"
So by that token, I think [ The Real ] WildFire Games should be looking to "fill the void" in the market and publish 0 AD themselves, I understand they may not feel ready -- but sometimes a swift kick in the ass can be a wake up call -- nobody is ready for the next stages in life -- by giving it your best YEET it is the way to success.
It worked for ConcernedApe when I told him before [ Beta ] of StardewValley that he needed to postpone Multiplayer until after 1.0 and give it his best shot -- he's an absolute millionaire and world famous now.
Life is not a dress rehearsal -- do what counts the most here in the now.
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pleasereadthemanual Oct 20, 2022
Selling free software and redistributing it to help others out is a great thing. It's one of your rights under both the GPL and less-permissive licenses. They do not, and should not need the permission of the 0 A.D. copyright holders to do so. If you don't want this to happen with your software, an OSI-compatible license is not the answer. You instead want a non-free license which prohibits commercial redistribution and derivatives.
However, failing to provide the source code when asked would be illegal. Did anybody ask for it? They do not have to provide it alongside the executable, although they must include an offer. Nonetheless, this is something that could be easily solved without much drama if they provided it when asked. If they impersonated the developers of 0 A.D. or claimed that they created it, this would be a crime (as it's fraud). It's not clear whether the party that published the game on Steam did this. I am not aware of any registered trademarks for 0 A.D. that were available to be infringed on.
Similar commercial redistribution has happened with GIMP (mostly on the Windows Store), and this is what they had to say about it: https://www.gimp.org/about/selling.html
They even have some specific recommendations for people who sell GIMP: https://www.gimp.org/about/selling.html#recommendations-for-those-who-sell-copies-of-gimp
If you're interested in why commercial redistribution is one of the four freedoms a free software license allows you, there's an article written by the creators/stewards of the GPL: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling
However, failing to provide the source code when asked would be illegal. Did anybody ask for it? They do not have to provide it alongside the executable, although they must include an offer. Nonetheless, this is something that could be easily solved without much drama if they provided it when asked. If they impersonated the developers of 0 A.D. or claimed that they created it, this would be a crime (as it's fraud). It's not clear whether the party that published the game on Steam did this. I am not aware of any registered trademarks for 0 A.D. that were available to be infringed on.
Similar commercial redistribution has happened with GIMP (mostly on the Windows Store), and this is what they had to say about it: https://www.gimp.org/about/selling.html
They even have some specific recommendations for people who sell GIMP: https://www.gimp.org/about/selling.html#recommendations-for-those-who-sell-copies-of-gimp
If you're interested in why commercial redistribution is one of the four freedoms a free software license allows you, there's an article written by the creators/stewards of the GPL: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling
QuoteMany people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding.
Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.
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pleasereadthemanual Oct 20, 2022
Quoting: EagleDeltaHow many authors? All of them? If you just needed the permission of one author, all you would need to do is make a change to the software and add your name to the contributor list.Quoting: slembckeWorth pointing out that their licensing basically allowed this: https://github.com/0ad/0ad/blob/master/LICENSE.txt
The source is GPL which specifically allows commercial redistribution, and the art is CC-by-sa3 which also specifically allows commercial redistribution. I can understand how the dev maybe missed that the GPL allows it since it's a wall of text, but the CC license is like 2 lines of text and half of it is devoted to saying this was fine. :-\ They could have just used a different CC variation that didn't allow redistribution.
I've been asked many times if I'm worried that someone could do this to my open source stuff, and I always tell them no. Like I didn't pick the licenses I do because it allows this, but I also... don't really care. Like sure, you can totally get a sucker to pay for something that's free, but reselling pirated stuff totally happens too. (shrug)
Open source users often have a certain attitude about how great it is that people make free stuff that they just give away from the warmth of their heart. Sometimes that's true, but it's usually much more nuanced than that. Sometimes you've got people that just want to give back and share what they learned, and sometimes you've got folks that openness as a moral imperative separate from the monetary aspects. Sometimes devs get caught up in the feelings too and forget what the legalese actually says. :(
edit: My point being: Open source is great, but make sure you know what you are getting yourself into!
You're missing that the Steamworks SDK, which is required to distribute a game on Steam, and since the Steamworks License is incompatible with "copyleft" licenses, any exceptions to the GPL to allow a piece of software to be distributed on Steam must be agreed to/decided on by the Software Authors, not just anybody.
Source: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk/uploading/distributing_opensource
If you need the permission of all the authors...that would be very problematic given that every contributor to a GPL codebase (at least without a CLA) owns the copyright to part of the code. Every single copyright holder would have to agree. VLC had a rough time getting the software on Apple's App Store because of this (needing to change the license to LGPL to do so): https://www.videolan.org/press/lgpl.html
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Quoting: dziadulewiczQuoting: CatKillerQuoting: dziadulewiczIt may work yes, but the thing is it does not launch out of the box clicking Play. We are talking about the desktop here not Steam Deck. The Steam in question is most certainly not flatpak. Check out the discussions on SuperTux on Steam: it's filled with "not launching" or similar threads.I just tried it on my Linux desktop. Absolutely zero issues out of the box. Hit Install, it installs. Hit Play, and it launches and runs fine.
I tried it too encouraged by your claim and guess what? IT HAS BEEN FIXED!It DOES launch now!
It does also bring to light part of the devs for 0ad concerns in publishing on Steam; supporting 3rd party proprietary middleware.
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Quoting: ElectricPrism[...]3. The Legal Angle
On #3 -- the Legal Angle -- strictly speaking there is nothing wrong with charging money for GPL software.[...]
There are two types of copyrights - I'm not sure what's the legal term in English but one type is money related and the other one is bragging rights. You can never get rid off bragging rights - you're the author and you cannot "sell" or "give away" being an author. As such everything that isn't covered by the license is protected by default. GPL by default covers only code (i.e. software, not media files - there are different licenses for those). Besides, the last time I read full GPL there was a whole section about restrictions on use of trademarks and logotypes (even the unregistered ones). So no, strictly speaking it's not okay, to just "redistribute" the project and take money for it. It'd have to be "redistributed" under a different name and with at least some (if not all) media files replaced or missing. On top of that a clear attribution to original product would have to be made. There's basis for suing, it's just not feasible money-wise.
Last edited by cprn on 21 October 2022 at 2:27 am UTC
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ElectricPrism Oct 21, 2022
Quoting: cprnQuoting: ElectricPrism[...]3. The Legal Angle
On #3 -- the Legal Angle -- strictly speaking there is nothing wrong with charging money for GPL software.[...]
There are two types of copyrights - I'm not sure what's the legal term in English but one type is money related and the other one is bragging rights. You can never get rid off bragging rights - you're the author and you cannot "sell" or "give away" being an author.
I'm not really sure what you're referencing or which region of the world.
Quoting: cprnSo no, strictly speaking it's not okay, to just "redistribute" the project and take money for it.
I know it seems shitty, but people charge to redistribute FOSS all the time.
ZorinOS ( https://zorin.com/os/pro/purchase/ ) is a distro which packages and sells collections of free software.
Ardour ( https://community.ardour.org/download?platform=win&architecture=x86_64&type=compiled ) sells copies of its software when you select Windows or Mac installation.
ElementaryOS had a paywall to download their OS ( And then all of you flipped out on them )
Ubuntu has a paywall for their OS download
RedHat charges yearly licenses and the Linux Kernel doesn't flip out on them for it.
FlatHub could easily have a free repository with [ slow speed ] and one with [ fast speed ] and throttle the slow one and sell access to the [ fast speed ] legally to make a quick buck -- the same goes for any Linux distro with repos. It would be 100% legal.
There's really not much difference between a maintainer who repackages for Steam or a FOSS Game and then shoves it into the AUR ( https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/0ad-git ), or Debian ( https://packages.debian.org/stable/0ad )
Both are repackaging and redistributing.
Redistribution of FOSS is protected.
Making money is protected by the GPL.
Quoting: cprnIt'd have to be "redistributed" under a different name and with at least some (if not all) media files replaced or missing.
Not really. If there were a AppImage and they simply redistributed it without modification AFAIK that would fulfill all obligations just fine.
Quoting: cprnOn top of that a clear attribution to original product would have to be made.
This is a moral argument, which directly contradicts the part you wrote before ("It'd have to be "redistributed" under a different name") -- which go ahead and argue it, i'm not going to disagree -- but again from my original post I prefer to stick to the legal requirements.
I know it seems shitty that the GPL is this way, but it's actually FUCKING AMAZING and without these freedoms we might as well be in a alternative walled garden hellscape.
Have some faith in the devs that they will work things out in their own particular way, and if they are smart -- they will see that people DO want to play their game on Steam and they WILL absolutely plug that hole and fill that void -- if they had done that to begin with, this could have never happened. Hopefully they remedy that.
Last edited by ElectricPrism on 21 October 2022 at 4:46 am UTC
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pleasereadthemanual Oct 21, 2022
Quoting: ElectricPrismNote that 0 A.D.'s source code is covered by the GPL and the art/music is covered by CC BY-SA, which requires attribution.Quoting: cprnOn top of that a clear attribution to original product would have to be made.
This is a moral argument, which directly contradicts the part you wrote before ("It'd have to be "redistributed" under a different name") -- which go ahead and argue it, i'm not going to disagree -- but again from my original post I prefer to stick to the legal requirements.
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BlackBloodRum Oct 21, 2022
Quoting: ElectricPrismRedHat charges yearly licenses and the Linux Kernel doesn't flip out on them for it.In the case of Redhat, it's not just charging for a license.
Their model is a support model, aka you pay them for support. Their source code is freely available - anyone can download it, subscription or not. In addition, even RHEL itself you can download from them for free and run it, for free, with updates included.
In addition they also do a lot for the Linux community (more than Valve even) including countless contributions to the Linux kernel and other parts of Linux (Fedora, NetworkManager, Systemd, PulseAudio, Flatpak etc etc).
All of the changes they make are submitted directly to upstream (or in some cases an entirely new application). So to say they're simply doing nothing but making money from FOSS is unfair to say the least.
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Quoting: ElectricPrismUbuntu has a paywall for their OS downloadErm... no. They ask for a donation along a "take me to downloads" link. That is not a paywall.
Quoting: ElectricPrismRedHat charges yearly licenses and the Linux Kernel doesn't flip out on them for it.
They charge for their service. Which also includes 24/7 support and guaranteed fixes and patches for up to 10 years. (Something SuSE or Canonical also do.)
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