Urban Terror Code Stolen 264
New submitter herbalt writes "The code of the free FPS game Urban Terror (a standalone game based on a Quake 3 mod), has been stolen. The development team, Frozen Sand, at first stated their Git Repository had been hacked, but later issued an announcement stating the perpetrator of the leak was a member of the development team. Frozen Sand also states they have found chat logs indicating there had been 'a plot to get B1naryTh1ef to steal the code so they could sell Urban Terror under a different name on Steam.'"
Well what do you know.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I had thought it was open source all this time. Huh.
Re:Well what do you know.... (Score:5, Insightful)
the CODE for the game could be open source but the ASSETS could not be. Plus its very skanky to jack somebodies code and then sell (for profit) the same game and not credit the original authors.
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Sounds like a good reason to change the assets to something they can ship under a free software license.
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It's not for me, I think it's they that will be better of by doing it.
Re:Well what do you know.... (Score:4, Insightful)
And what if they don't want to open source their assets?
They don't have to. No one is forcing them to do that.
Your "desire" to see them "succeed" sounds eerily similar to blackmail: "That's some nice source code there, you should probably just make it open source, it'd be a real shame if something were to happen to it."
If you cannot fundamentally respect their rights to license their work as they see fit - even if you don't agree with their choices - then you have exactly zero standing to complain when somebody else disregards your wishes as to how source code YOU wrote will be released and licensed. If you don't agree with someone's choice to not open source their assets, you do not automatically gain the right to take a copy. Don't like their license? Do without, or write your own open source alternative.
I cannot wait to see the day when thugs who feel they have the right to take anything they want at any time they please are shunned out of any civilized company - as they should be.
I think it's better for them and for all other software developers to produce free software. I don't understand how you can think that's blackmail, it's not like I'm in a position to make them do anything.
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Very few software developers actually sell software. Most software developers are paid to build custom software used by the same company that they are employed by or by some other company under contract.
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And that makes it different how exactly?
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Very few software developers actually sell software. Most software developers are paid to build custom software used by the same company that they are employed by or by some other company under contract.
But almost all game developers sell their software (or "in-game purchases" for the F2P games), because video games have no other viable business model. A good video game is often involves massive work on its code, art, music, gameplay, and story. Aside from asking for donations, how do you imagine such workers will be compensated for their efforts?
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I'd argue it isn't a baby, it's a baby doll that your delusional wife is insisting is her kid.
Pre-1923 (Score:2)
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Culture and knowledge are human rights. You're free to develop your own culture and knowledge, and license the use of the culture and knowledge you develop:
Some people will choose to license their written culture and knowledge very permissively, and share freely - think "public domain."
Some people will choose to attach some conditions to their culture and knowledge that are intended to encourage sharing - think "FOSS licenses"
Some people will choose to set terms and conditions that greatly restrict sharing
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Sure, I'll be happy to. But first, please show me the specific pieces of culture that you have created - and thus own copyrights for - which you feel I've infringed upon.
You know, since you can't copyright the generic concept of "culture" - but you knew that already.
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Fundamental property rights have been acknowledged by courts for hundreds of years - the product of my labor is my property, and I have some fundamental ownership of the product of that labor. I am then free to enter into mutually-consensual trades with other people, whereby they trade some product of their labor that I want, in exchange for some product of my labor that they want, and we both are enri
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Exactly, and so once you sell that code to me, just like if you sold me a horse or a car
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I have every right in the world to attach stipulations to the sale of a horse, or a cart, or an axe if I wish. I can even ask you to make it all official-like by signing a legally binding contract with me, guaranteeing, for instance, that the horse will not be used for farm labor, and will be guaranteed at least 4 carrots a day with his feed, because he loves those carrots. I can't force you to accept these conditions post-sale, certainly, but before the sale is completed? I'm allowed to ask for just abo
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Well for one they don't have to worry about someone stealing their source code. But over all the free software development methodology tends to lead to collaboration which in turn lead to innovation. I'm sure they have benefited from this since they based their own work on free software, which is a good first step toward fully embracing the free software methodology.
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I loaned my buddy a copy of my C.H.U.D DVD several years ago, It was stolen from him. So if he gave you his T.V., and you lived in a higher Crime area than him; chances are much greater the T.V. would be stolen while in your possession, whatever that means. I suppose you can't determine anything without factoring in an infinite number of variables; with each variable risking either a collapse, or a fortification of your theory.
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>If you give me your TV you don't have to worry about me (or anyone else) stealing it?!
Irrelevant, a TV is a physical object and thus obeys different laws.
If I have a recording of myself singing my own composition, and give you a copy, then we both have a copy, and you have no incentive to steal mine.
The essence of open source is that I give my work away freely. I may put limits on what you are legally allowed to do with it, but actually getting the thing is something I encourage and do not charge for i
Plenty of cases where Closed Source copies Open (Score:2)
For example, I've been using tabbed file browsing for about a decade now; they've been the default in my desktop environments. I hear the latest version of OSX is going to finally add that. Who knows if/when Windows will. That's a fairly trivial feature, sure.
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Re:Well what do you know.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well what do you know.... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, that was literate. Any attempt to match wits with such an individual would be foolhardy.
"Clearly, he has a dizzying intellect."
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Inconceivable!
You keep using "you wont rid yourselfs of me."
I do not think it means what you think it means.
Re:Well what do you know.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to sell something that can be got for free is unlikely to be highly profitable.
Bottled Water.
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Trying to sell something that can be got for free is unlikely to be highly profitable.
Bottled Water.
I am not aware of free bottled water. Water from the tap or from a river may be free, but the bottled stuff that I have seen costs money.
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Trying to sell something that can be got for free is unlikely to be highly profitable.
http://www.redhat.com/ [redhat.com] - A $1 billion a year revenue company
Re:Well what do you know.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Trying to sell something that can be got for free is unlikely to be highly profitable.
Tanning Salons?
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How exactly would it be possible to *steal* code to an open source project? It's presumably available free for the asking to anyone who wants it, right? Of course you could illegally release a derivative work honoring your license obligations, but that has nothing to do with theft, and certainly nothing to do with hacking a Git repository.
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that should be
> illegally release a derivative work without honoring your license obligations
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I guess the mod code belongs in the assets category if someone is confused.
why they would do that I don't fucking get. unreal engine is pretty cheap, they could make it more modern and the urban terror code that is urban terror itself? not much to it, really. not much at all.
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Yes you can.
"Pirating" something on the personal scale would be to take a copy of the program for your use without permission.
Taking the source to sell elsewhere is commercial piracy, which is rightfully pilloried everywhere (I don't think I've seen many, if any, posts here defending commercial pirates; most of the replies I've read have flat out called for a lynch mob. They're in the same social category as spammers).
What you're effectively saying in your post is "You can't commit theft while with the sam
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This all sounds a lot like a publicity stunt, to garner attention for the game, to me.
Re:Well what do you know.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well what do you know.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Stealing the source to sell the game on Steam? In what world does anyone think that they could get away with that? Even major corporations aren't that stupid. It's literally the dumbest idea I've ever heard."
Never heard of Zynga, I see.
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zynga are scumbag parasites and marketing spies, but copying ideas is not despicable.
ideas can not be owned, so they can not be stolen.
a *specific* implementation of an idea can be patented as an invention, and a *specific* expression of an idea can be copyrighted. the idea itself can not be restricted.
this is what is wrong with the 'intellectual property' meme - it encourages dumb people to think of ideas as some form of property, and conflates the entirely separate and unrelated legal concepts of copyrig
Re:Well what do you know.... (Score:5, Funny)
even weirder is that B1naryTh1ef would be stealing the source code.
Yeah, that's clearly a job for S0urceTh1ef!
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Yep. It used to be Open Source and used a modified open source Quake 2 fork, but the new version is closed source. The licensed the commercial version of Quake 3 so they could use anti-cheat and such.
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I thought only the commercial, proprietary releases of Quake had punkbuster built in. The open source versions did not, because it was licensed for Quake, but they didn't own the rights to release it as open source.
The previous release of Urban Terror on the open source Quake fork did not have anti-cheat. When they got a commercial Quake license, they could use the anti-cheat.
Poor choice of name (Score:5, Funny)
If you call yourself "B1naryTh1ef", and then steal the source, that just indicates a general sloppiness of character. Sheesh.
Re:Poor choice of name (Score:5, Funny)
That's why he chose that name. Nobody would expect B1naryTh1ef of planning to steal source code.
Re:Poor choice of name (Score:5, Funny)
That's why he chose that name. Nobody would expect B1naryTh1ef of planning to steal source code.
In that case, maybe he should have called himself TheSpan1sh1nqu1s1t1on...
Whoa. /keanu (Score:2)
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I was just thinking when I read the headline "Wait, that game still exists and servers weren't left to rot years ago?"
I remember playing it like a decade ago, and thinking that it was a slightly "edgier" version of Counterstrike, except that anyone with Half Life could already play Counterstrike.
Maybe it's gained something in the last decade, but if it's still based on Q3, I doubt it has gained much.
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I'd like to know more, except it appears their website is slashdotted. Guess not.
U sure it wasn't NSA? (Score:5, Interesting)
War Z II ? (Score:2)
what am i missing? (Score:3, Informative)
quick google of the name and i found a github repo that's been up for years. [github.com]
The officially supported ioquake3 engine by the Frozen Sand Development Team for the game Urban Terror 4.x
so what's the deal?
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Re:what am i missing? (Score:4, Informative)
That's just the open source Q3 engine though.
UT is a closed source mod to the engine developed seperately (under the Q3 SDK licence)
From http://www.urbanterror.info/support/196-misc/#1.1 [urbanterror.info]
"Urban Terror uses the Quake 3 SDK license. This means the game code (the .qvm's in zpak000.pk3) are closed source."
"Urban Terror's close sourced .qvm's (quake virtual machine) are interprated by the open source engine"
So basically there are three bits: engine, mod and assets. The engine can be the open source Q3 (but could be the closed source version, and doesn't really care). The magic bits of the mod are closed source, and presumably the bits that have been "stolen".
(no expert, just reading the FAQ's)
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I really liked the old game but got banned from the new account system for writing weapon switching scripts, ironic when UrT is itself a big ol' hack, alas the entire site is run by a single overlord with a very dogmatic view on hacking of any kind
well what you were doing is not considered hacking but rather cheating because it gave you an advantage over other players. UrT is actually not a hack, it's a fork of the original source code with lots of original content. a hack would be if you tweaked certain aspects of the game or had drop in replacement content.
Oh no (Score:2)
Now where am I going to find an identikit arena shooter based upon the Quake 3 engine?
Oh wait, here's a short list of a few of them
http://freegamer.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/quake3-total-conversions.html [blogspot.co.uk]
Come on, the id Tech 3 source code was realised 8 years ago yesterday. Are there really no better engines out there?
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Seems to work just fine for Activision. They've been using it as the base source for the Call of Duty games up to and including Modern Warfare 3/4 and all the various spin-offs. It's highly modified, but at the end of the day Q3A continues to be the gold standard in FPS.
Spooky subject line if you don't have italics (Score:2)
The real story (Score:5, Insightful)
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Further proving UrT is the craphole of internet drama that I gladly left a bit ago.
How can you "hack" a git repository? (Score:2)
The entire source tree for a git repository is in git clone, with the magic sauce of "--mirror" to get the full repository. This is an advantage for open source distributed teams, but not a great methodology for closed source development like this was.
Deeply amusing.
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MPAA officially changed the definition of "stolen."
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All the people using the expression "You stole my idea!" changed the meaning of it long, long, LONG before that.
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Stolen [reference.com] does not mean to deprive another of ownership, it means to take without permission. That's what it has meant for generations.
I'd wager they know that, but are actively denying said knowledge in an act of mental gymnastics, purely for the sake of attempting justification of their unjustifiable positions.
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Stolen does not mean to deprive another of ownership, it means to take without permission.
And what does take [reference.com] mean? When your definition was penned, taking something clearly deprived the former possessor of ownership.
I'll concede that re-using the word "stolen" isn't a terrible choice for this new "take-a-copy" action, but let's not pretend that this is what its meant all along.
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No, it's not "wrong" or unethical to prevent anyone from copying code. Free software licenses require copyrights. Asserting that the owner of source code has no right to control copying of their work via copyright carries with it the assertion that the terms of ALL software licenses - even those 'approved by the FSF' - may be safely disregarded
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you have no basis to complain when a company takes your GPLv3 code and does whatever they want with it, and contributes nothing back to the community.
On the other hand, without copyright, the company would have no basis to complain when someone disassembles the company's modified version, comments it, and distributes it.
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Steam here means a division of Valve (Score:2)
Re:Stolen or copied (Score:5, Insightful)
Until someone comes up with a single word that means "copied against the will of the code's owner", people will use the word stolen. Get over it.
Re:Stolen or copied (Score:5, Funny)
Copyrightinfringement. There. No spaces, like German. Is that alright with you?
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Re:Stolen or copied (Score:5, Interesting)
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German has pretty much the same word order as English (conditions apply of course).
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I'll just put this Mark Twain work [wikisource.org] out there...
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Genius. Still holds his own with any modern comedian.
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No, the non-word "alright" is not all right with me.
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As Frozen Sand have admitted that the culprit was someone on their own team then "leaked" or "pirated" would work well.
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Until someone comes up with a single word that means "copied against the will of the code's owner", people will use the word stolen. Get over it.
"copywronged"?
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How about "jacked?" I always favored that term in regards to digital theft.
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Freejacked?
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Pirate is no better than stolen in this context. They are both loaded terms appropriated by those with financial incentive to make something seem worse than it is.
It seems to me that the best word here would be plagiarism.
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Welcome to the English language dumbfuck.
We just refer to it as "the English language". Calling it the "English language dumbfuck" is just redundant.
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While I agree to a point, I have to... point out... another phrase you should probably be up-in-arms about: "You stole my idea!"
Kind of hard to -take- an idea from someone, after all...
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That seems unlikely, though. More likely the potential future revenue was merely 'destroyed' if anything, eh?
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since when do copyright holders care about things like first sale doctrine, right of ownership, or privacy of their customers? You can whine about lack of morality all you want, but these guys are no better than the most ardent richard stallman supporter. In fact, the latter at least has a legit argument for their stance: control over their hardware and property...real property, not fantasy control schemes.
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One thing was free. A different thing was stolen. That's really not that hard to understand.
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If you drive around town in an ice cream truck giving out free ice cream, and someone jacks your truck, you would presumably still go to the cops, right?
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I believe the standalone Urban Terror is based on the GPL'd Quake 3 code. For them to *not* make the code available was likely a license violation.
Point? Two wrongs don't make a right.
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Crescent ROLLS, maybe. But a crescent wrench, probably not. I'd torrent some butter while I was at it, just to make it complete.
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Fair enough.
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