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From: "John Colagioia" <JColagioia@csi.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: IF library licence / game licence
Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 10:05:05 -0400
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Stephen L Breslin <breslin@acsu.buffalo.edu> wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Jul 2002 09:39:26 -0400, John Colagioia
><JColagioia@csi.com> wrote:
[...]
>>Improved in what way?  What rights that game programmers want is not
>>granted?  What rights that library writers would normally like to
>>reserve is over-granted?
>To answer the middle question, "none."

Actually, I meant (I hope) from the perspective of libraries.

> An analysis of the first and
>third questions is the project of this thread. Briefly:
>
>>> Can we make a better library
>>> licence which will provoke the users to make public their use of the
>>> library?
>>Is this inherently desirable?
>Yes. Well, not always. Sometimes it's neither desirable nor
>indesirable. I think it's desirable to provoke all authors to publish
>their source code (with certain reservations attached), but what they
>publish will of course not _always_ be useful to the community. Do you
>think this is sometimes a bad thing?

Yes.  I believe that, in some cases (perhaps not many),
publishing the source can have a bad effect on the
surrounding community.  Do I have specific examples?  Not
any that wouldn't be handwaved away.  Things I can think
of off the top of my head:

- Stagnation can occur, if everyone settles on a dead-end
methodology.  As a lousy (but indicative) example, consider
how many programming students will continue to use a bubble
sort routine long into their professional careers, just
because it was one of the first things they learned.  In a
more IF-centric example, how many aspiring Inform authors
have *not* tried to find an excuse for working the
Enchanter spellcasting system into a game, just because
the code is sitting there in Balances and the IDM?

- Impressions and Imitators:  This is, in many respects, a
fairly impressionable community (I believe this is why so
many people believe in that evil Cabal, by the way).  If a
new game catches a large population's interest, and the
source is released too soon, we may end up with a whole
slew of uninteresting games that'll turn people off to the
community.  Consider a competition where half the games
are set in a decaying apartment or talking to one person.

And, on a more moral/ethical point of view (my personal
one, just so nobody thinks I'm preaching), I believe that
every author has a right to some secrets.  Some are, as
mentioned, embarassed about their code; some are testing
a partial idea for use elsewhere; some people don't want
to spoil their puzzle; and, some people just don't believe
its anybody's business what the code says.

Licenses that "motivate" or "encourage" source publication
can only serve to separate these people from "the group,"
which is not something any of us want.  I hope.

Are these the *majority* of cases?  Probably not.  But
they are definite cases that shouldn't be discarded as
"not being what people want."

>>More to the point, is this not
>>included in the above, concise statement?
>No, I don't think it is, if the above concise statement you refer to
>is your: "This library may be used, adapted, and modified in any way
>without charge, so long as the originating author remains credited."
>This doesn't appear to do anything to provoke users of a library to
>publish their source code.

Exactly.  Why should authors be poked and prodded if they
don't want to do it?  Yes, there are some (dubious, in my
opinion) benefits to a subpopulation, but that's hardly a
reason to poke and prod volunteers to do something they're
not interested in doing.

Personally, I tend to shy away from GPL-like code, exactly
because I may have (or develop) reasons that I don't think
my code should be published.  Do we want to prevent, say,
Emily Short or Andrew Plotkin from using a particular
library, because they don't think they'll want to release
the source to the game?

>>> I think this would be useful and "*really* wanted," if it
>>> were sufficiently worked out and made available.
>>But *who* wants it?  The FSF supporters?  Game programmers?  Library
>>programmers?  Game players?  If it isn't one of the central two, then
>>they have no business making requests, to be blunt.
>Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. (But with specific reservations for each.) FSF
>supporters will like this to the extent that the goals are similar: a
>GNU LGPL tailored to the needs of the IF community would be
>appreciated by FSF of course, although they probably won't care all
>that much.

Which is probably fine, in the long run, because we
shouldn't be caring one bit what "they" think.

>The game programmers will have a much wider range of
>examples and better libraries to work with, and although they might
>initially feel embarassed that their code is not as beautiful as
>Kevin's, Mike's, or Dan's, there would be safety in numbers and they'd
>be sufficiently distracted by the benefits.

Strawman argument.  If I'm looking for conversational
code, I'm not going to search the archive for anything
that *might* do the job; I'm probably going to look for
the code to specific games.

Similarly, libraries are not "better," just because (a)
your game has to be provided as source, and (b) you can
monkey with the library as desired.

Open Source or not, major work is not done by the
metaphorical infinite monkeys; it's done mostly by the
dedicated people who "adopt" the project.

>Library writers would have
>more material to draw on:

No.  Library writers who support the "party line" will
have a different set (possibly larger or smaller) of
material to draw from.

>they would for example have useful instances
>of how their library was used, so they could see how it could be
>improved; they would occasionally have at their disposal other
>implementations of the same task, making life much easier.

If it's already been done, then there's "no reason" to
do it again...

>Game
>players would benefit from better games, where less work was required
>of the game writer, who could then spend more energy on making the
>game beuatifully written, intriguing, and whatnot.

This sounds suspiciously like the VB fad, then the MFC
fad, in the Windows world.  "We did all this work, so
you don't have to do *anything*."  I hear the chuckles
in the audience, and fully support them...

I'm not dismissing you on this point, but I am trying
to point out that it sounds far more like propaganda
than an actual benefit, and I don't think I've ever
seen numbers that support such statements.

>>>[Replacing the credit clause with a request for feedback] is a
>>>good idea, but that limits the benefit to the library writer;
>>Again, if the library writer licenses his work, his beneits are
>>limited, by definition.
>I mean, the benefit of feedback is limited to the writer. Suppose a
>writer has lost interest in the project, and the feedback falls on
>deaf ears?

As I said, I think I've managed to dump everything I've
lost interest in to the Public Domain.  Anyone contacting
me is told so and pointed to the latest version I know
about.

Granted, it's an issue that should be considered in a bit
more detail (like, what happens if I vanish, or my e-mail
address breaks), but at the end of the day, I kind of
hope and believe that I'm not that pivotal to the fate of
the universe.

>Suppose the writer reads and enjoys the feedback, but never
>becomes motivated to produce anything as a result of it, so it in the
>end isn't remotely useful to the community.

Then, just like has happened for decades in the commercial
software world, someone will step in and take the time to
duplicate the work.  Probably with a "better" license.

>If the feedback, however
>defined, were addressed to the community rather than the individual,
>there would be no such losses. An author might want to save himself
>the trouble with a licence that is designed to make the community, not
>himself, the beneficiary of his library's use.

Then, again, why not encourage everyone to put their work
in the far simpler, less restrictive, Public Domain when
they're done with it?

The obvious alternative, incidentally, which I think most
people around here (including myself) would despise, is
to set up a self-perpetuating board of people to whom
copyright (and, thus, licensing) of a work is entrusted.

[...]
>I don't know why you're coloring it that way.

Partly because you're coloring it the other way, and I
wasn't sure "you're deliberately tinting your language"
would produce a productive response.

Philosophy tends to be like accents.  "Everyone *else*
speaks with an accent; I don't have one."

>Someone can make public
>requests that a thing be done by someone else who knows how. That
>happens all the time in this forum. Anyway, I'm not just talking about
>feedback; we can also consider sourcecode.

Honestly?  In my opinion, this isn't much of a big deal,
and I've never really understood how other people think
it is.

If we're each given individual rights to modify (but
not republish) a library, we can (and probably should,
just for the purposes of modularity) still release any
modifications as patches or further extensions.

Yes, it'll take slightly more technical expertise for
the next user, but this community is fairly good at
this sort of thing, as evidenced by the changes
people make to the Inform library.

>> > it would be more generally useful if this "feedback" were addressed to
>> > the community at large, rather than an individual.
>>The way to do this, then, is to essentially replicate the concept
>>behind the GPL in a more direct manner.  You need to define "the
>>community at large," and pass all necessary rights to them.
>I think the GPL gets the community about right.

Their "community" is "anyone who plays by the same rules
we do."  That's far stricter than most IF people would
consider this community.

>The main problems with
>the GPL licenses were summarized in the bit that began this thread.
>
>>But...since we've already talked about granted rights, who's in "the
>>community at large"?  Me?  That mysterious, evil Cabal that
>>whimsically controls our thoughts?  Imaginary personages who post
>>messages?  Anyone who happens to stumble on the IF Archive?
>Yes.

Probably not, since I'm not going to make the a priori
decision to release code to a game.

>Don't be ridiculous.

They're part of the community, aren't they...?

>Imaginary people don't post messages.

Heh.  You haven't been here too long, obviously...

>Yes.

Only if they make the choice to publish their source
before writing any of it.  Assuming the license is GPL-
like.

>>Again, GPL says, "anyone who publically gives proper credit and
>>offers source code" (since that's what the FSF requires), Microsoft
>>says, "the guy with the receipt," and Public Domain type licenses
>>say, "anyone who finds this."  This community seems too diverse to be
>>able to unilaterally use any of these.
>I think that the GPL addresses a wider body than programmers; it
>addresses users. I appreciate your wry tone, but I'm not sure how
>helpful these distinctions are. The identity of the IF community seems
>pretty clear.

Well, then...specify them (us, whatever).

I can't think of a description that would cover it,
unless you assume some set of rules that not all of
us will wish to follow.

>>Note that I don't think I'm trying to be discouraging.  What I am
>>definitely trying to do is show that the library writers and library
>>users are in the best position to judge licensing issues.
>Yes, of course. Showing that should be effortless. Plus, why do you
>think I'm addressing this group?

The thing is, you don't seem to be addressing the
group in a...I don't want to use the obviously-slanted
word "useful," but that's all that comes to mind, so I
apologize...way.  What you seem to be doing is telling
all of us what we *really* want.

I have yet to see, for example, anyone post, "Yes, I
think my library would be measurably better if I had
access to all source code that used it."  I've seen lots
of programmers say that they wouldn't be using such a
license for whatever reason, though.

Granted, we've seen several game-programmers-to-be say
that they learned "a lot" from some particular game's
source, but I'm not sure that's a major issue in such
a generous community, where "how might I do this" is
almost invariably responded to with source code.
