The Dark Mod 2.0 Standalone: Id Tech 4 GPL Yields a Free Thief-a-Like Game 98
An anonymous reader writes "After nine years of development, The Dark Mod is now a standalone game. Thief fans can now enjoy over 60 fan made missions which capture the essence of the Thief 1 / 2 games. Originally created as a reaction to Thief 3; with the upcoming release of Thief 4, many are comparing what was done here (a faithful extension of the old gameplay) to what Eidos has shown thus far. Can a little Doom 3 mod compete against a blockbuster AAA title? Should we even compare them?"
All code in the The Dark Mod is GPLv3+, and the art assets are all CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported which means it, unfortunately, cannot be distributed by even Debian. Still, an impressive feat!
Re:"by even Debian" (Score:5, Insightful)
cannot be distributed by even Debian
I think that should say "cannot be distributed by entities that require commercial-use permission, like Debian." Debian has very strict rules on what it will redistribute, not because it must have those rules, but because it chooses to.
The -NC option prevents anyone from taking The Dark Mod's assets and publishing them in a commercial game. This annoys some pure-freedom-loving folks (like the Debian project and RMS) because they feel it's important that information be free for anyone to use in any way. On the other hand, for the "it's my work, so it's my choice" crowd, the -NC option ensures that nobody can copy their work and make a profit.
Debian's choice is theirs to make, as is any other distributor's, and has nothing to do with The Dark Mod. There's no reason to put such pointless slant in a summary.
"by even Debian" is just dumb as it makes it appear Debian has the lowest standards when the reverse is true.
And you should consider learning just a little about Debian and Debian repositories. There's nothing to stop the game being distributed by Debian in the non-free repo except maybe the willingness of some one to package it.
Re:CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here you are [creativecommons.org], your highness.
I don't know why Debian can't package it, but I think it has to do with the fact that Debian is extraordinarily picky about licensing.
Re:"by even Debian" (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, for the "it's my work, so it's my choice" crowd, the -NC option ensures that nobody can copy their work and make a profit.
It also ensures that the copyright holders can walk up to any non-trivial entity with non-zero assets (like Debian) and shake it down for cash or creative control, regardless of whether the entity is distributing anything "commercially". A fear of lawsuit will be more than enough to censor legitimate uses by entities that are not equipped for a legal battle. Every piece of non-free software is a liability both for the user and for the distributor, so Debian is wise to stay away.
Re:"by even Debian" (Score:3, Insightful)
The license restrictions are inherited from some of the assets we acquired from other vendors (texture sites, etc). Since there is no way to track down all the contributors, any commercial use of the mod could not be reconcilable. Plus, a non-commercial license ensures less risk for Eidos (et all) coming after the mod even though we do not infringe on their IP.