id Resolves DOSBox/GPL Issue

The British Gaming Blog is reporting that id Software has successfully resolved the minor issue it had with DOSBox, regarding older PC games being sold on Valve's Steam network. "The problem is all fixed up now with the proper licensing text in the game's readme. Developers working hand in hand with smaller application authors is not all that uncommon; SCUMM has worked closely with point and click masters Revolution and LucasArts to improve compatibility with their games, and hopefully this trend will continue so we can experience more old classics in the future."

Re:Source

[Anonymous Coward]

According to "wd" on the Dosbox forum (link) [zetafleet.com]:

Binary file comparison shows that they are using the 0.70 release executable and added a wrapper. Means they did not modify the sources, just for clarification.

So Valve have added a launcher program to a vanilla Dosbox binary, a bit like UPX. They haven't modified any GPL source code, or even recompiled Dosbox. Whether this is still a GPL violation is a question for Eben Moglen and the other FSF lawyers, but the senior Dosbox developers are perfectly happy with the situation now, so it probably won't be pursued further.

Re:Source

[Anonymous Coward]

You still need the levels from the original games, and if you want to play more than the shareware episodes...

Re:Source

[Rhaban]

But you still need the original game to do this in full legality. This offer is for people who don't already own the games and want to buy it. After that I think they can use any port they want to play them.

Re:Source

[spyrochaete]

You can still use those engine ports with the Steam version. Steam only protects the main executable, not the data WAD files.

Re:Source

[SCPRedMage]

Actually, Valve put a wrappper around the DOSBox executable, making it so that it wouldn't run if Steam wasn't present. Underneath that was an unmodified version of DOSBox, but there's still some users on the DOSBox forums claiming that this still constitutes a "modification" to it, and requires that they release the source to it, as well as the program that "links" to it, aka, STEAM.

Of course, since the senior DOSBox staff seems content with this, it doesn't look like this will come to anything more than a bunch of whiners spamming forums 'cause they think they've been "wronged"...

Already Resolved

[kaleco]

This issue was already resolved when the violation story was posted. This story would have been better served as a Slashback article.

Re:Source

[SCPRedMage]

Aye, that it does.

Re:Source

[SCPRedMage]

Actually, Steam isn't even doing THAT much; it's protecting the DOSBox executable, which you can easily get a non-DRM'd version of. The game executable is DRM-free...

Correction to parent

[codefrog]

Actually at least the most recent titles Sega Genesis Collection (PS2/PSP) and Sega Vintage Collection (Xbox 360 Live Arcade) definitely do _not_ use open source emulation. Digital Eclipse (aka Backbone) has proprietary emulation code which is used in many many emulation compilations. Open source emulation code (such as Gens) tends to rely on a patchwork of code from various sources (68000 core, Z80 core, sound chips, and so on) which would make it extremely difficult (or impossible) to properly license it as a package for commercial release.

Non-issue

[Xiph]

This really was a no-brainer non-issue from the start.
It's obvious that ID are proponents of open software.
The dosbox forums were not half-way as upset as slashdot.
ID-software started fixing this, even before the /. article hit the frontpage.

Nothing to see here, or for that matter in the previous article, move along.

id still committed to open source

[CrusadeR]

Here's an exchange from the QuakeCon keynote last Friday:

Audience member:
"I wanted to say thank you for open-sourcing the Quake 3 engine, it's made a huge difference to the community. I wanted to ask your opinion about the future of Linux and open source gaming."

John Carmack:
"I do take a great deal of personal pride and satisfaction with what I've been able to do with getting so much of the stuff out. Sometimes I think about it, and while I know it's not something I'm generally considered for, I may be one of the most prolific open source authors considering all the code that I've written over the last 15 years that I've made open source, or have made open source there. I do think it's very valuable. I'm very happy when I see both user gaming community stuff, or research universities, or people doing simulation tests, or bringing up things. Every new piece of hardware ends up having Doom or Quake titles used as an early form of test application. So I'm very happy to have done that. It's certainly going to continue. I mean I won't commit to a date, but the Doom 3 stuff will be open source. We still make those decisions even today when we're doing the Rage code when we have decisions about "do we want to integrate some other vendor's solution, some proprietary code into this". And the answer's usually no, because eventually id Tech 5 is going to be open source also. This is still the law of the land at id, that the policy is that we're not going to integrate stuff that's going to make it impossible for us to do an eventual open source release. We can argue the exact pros and cons from a pure business standpoint on it, and I can at least make some, perhaps somewhat, contrived cases that I think it's good for the business, but as a personal conviction it's still pretty important to me and I'm standing by that."

Source: http://www.3ddownloads.com/Action/Rage/Movies/john _carmack-quakecon-keynote-2007.mp3 [3ddownloads.com] (about 1 hour 25 minutes in)

Re:Correction to parent

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, sega used their own closed-source genesis emulator for some editions of the japanese dreamcast web browser (which included some sega genesis game roms) back in 2000 or so.

Re:Source

[Chris Burke]

Yes, it's a violation because the GPL states that if you distribute the binaries you must distribute the source and license as well.

Well aside from the fact that this is what Valve is doing (distributing the source), it is actually not a requirement of the GPL that you distribute the source along with the binaries. Here's the relevent part of the GPL:

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

        a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
        b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
        c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

So merely offering to send you the source if you ask (not even necessarily through steam, they could require you to mail a request with a small shipping fee and then they mail you a CD with the source on it) would be sufficient. But practically speaking, since compared to the games your downloading the source to dosbox is most likely very small, it's just easier for them to comply by giving you the binaries and source at the same time.