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:The Nightmare Of Dealing With Kooky Licenses

[Calinous]

Id software will suffer long, and the result on their bottom line will be degraded greatly. They might even go out of business, considering the costs the inclusion of the text of the licensing agreement of DosBox in their readme will incur.

Re:

[Calinous]

I don't usually do this, but the temptation of the parent's post was too great.
      I really should browse at +1 when I'm not having mod points

Re:

[cluke]

Yes, I bet they are kicking themselves they didn't spend 6 man-months or more of dev and testing time creating their own emulator!

Actually the opposite

[huckamania]

This is probably the dream situation. First, the GPL developers actually recognize that id and steam using their stuff is a good thing. Second, id and steam didn't integrate any of the GPL stuff into their own base.

Take either of those two things away and this situation can quickly approach nightmare levels from a corporate perspective. Eventually, there is going to be a very high profile case where some developer at some company gets caught stealing gpl code after integrating it into their companies

Re:Source

[montyzooooma]

Probably the launcher requires Steam or the application itself but Dosbox is untouched.

Re:

[SCPRedMage]

Aye, I've heard the same; which, of course, seems just a tad silly, 'cause I can turn around and download the REAL DOSBox for free, and play without Steam... Or better yet, grab one of the COUNTLESS engine ports/updates for Wolf3d/Doom and play a BETTER version of the games...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:

[FinchWorld]

It slikely yo can pick it up in your local independent games shop for a few pennies, just rummage through the bargin bin. Failing that Im sure theres user generated content to play instead.

Re:

[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:

[SCPRedMage]

Well, yeah, they can. That's my point; the data's all there, and nothing's stopping anyone from using a port, or evening replacing the Steam version of DOSBox with the official one. In this particular case, Steam's copy protection as absolutely meaningless, which kinda makes it's inclusion a little silly; prompting possible legal issues on account of protection that doesn't protect anything? Why even bother?

Re:

[SCPRedMage]

Actually, if they used a stock version of DOSBox, it wouldn't have changed a thing; it would have been just as readily available. Instead, they went out of their to add a copy protect system that:
A. Just doesn't work.
and
B. Could potentially be a violation of the GPL.

Re:

[DrXym]

Aye, I've heard the same; which, of course, seems just a tad silly, 'cause I can turn around and download the REAL DOSBox for free, and play without Steam... Or better yet, grab one of the COUNTLESS engine ports/updates for Wolf3d/Doom and play a BETTER version of the games...

Yes you can do that. So what's the problem? Pay Steam if you don't own the original and want hassle free installation, or do it yourself.

Re:

[spyrochaete]

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

Re:

[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...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* More elitism. Most people don't KNOW what DOSBox is or have any idea what a 'port' is. This is for those people.

Get off your high horse. And nice job moding up worthless post people.

Re:

[Applekid]

It is much better to light a candle than damn the darkness.

DOSBox [sourceforge.net]

Re:

[Ultra64]

If you don't know what DOSBox or a 'port' is and you can't find out on your own with a search engine, then what the fuck are you doing on slashdot?
This is 'News for Nerds' not 'News for people who whine cause they don't understand something.'

Re:

[sumdumass]

Um.. I think he was talking about all the people who aren't rolling their own outside of steam. I think it is a valid point because it not only would involve more people then those on slashdot but it might also encompass some on here too. A geek doesn't mean a geek like you. So lets drink a little less coffee and lighten up a little.

Re:

[Ultra64]

LESS COFFEE???!
But I'VE ONLY had 12 cups today.

Re:

[sumdumass]

Only 12 cups? And your already that jumpy and inpatient? Maybe I guessed wrong ;)

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.

It helps to read the article

[Enderandrew]

The original complaint was merely that the license wasn't included. If you distribute GPL material I do believe you are required to distribute a copy of the license with it.

id and the DOSBox crew are apparently all happy now, and all they had to do was include the license with the distribution, as noted in the article.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The post that I was responding to was asking about the possibly unresolved issue regarding the call to "steam.dll" that was embedded in the "dosbox.exe" program. This issue was not even mentioned in the article. The article also doesn't mention that Valve are now distributing the dosbox source code with every copy of the game.

Re:

[El_Muerte_TDS]

So it still works when you replace VALVe's DOSbox with the latest DOSbox release?

Re:

[SCPRedMage]

Aye, that it does.

Re:

[BobPaul]

Yes, it's a violation because the GPL states that if you distribute the binaries you must distribute the source and license as well. It does not matter if someone else is also distributing the source and license for the same product because you have no guarantee they will still be doing such a year from now, week from now, or even tomorrow.

For the source, it's acceptable to providing a snail mail or e-mail address users can write to and request the source. You can also provide a URL that allows one to downl

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.

Re:

[BobPaul]

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.

Thanks for that. Read my full comment, as I already stated that.

Well aside from the fact that this is what Valve is doing (distributing the source)

My comment was in a thread discussing whether or not it was a violation to begin with since the code had not even change. The crux of my comment was the GPL applies to any distribution, even if what you've not made changes before the distribution. That Valve/ID is no longer violating has no bearing to the conversation.

Thanks for playing!

Re:

[Chris Burke]

My comment was in a thread discussing whether or not it was a violation to begin with since the code had not even change. The crux of my comment was the GPL applies to any distribution, even if what you've not made changes before the distribution. That Valve/ID is no longer violating has no bearing to the conversation.

Ha ha, no it isn't! Your comment is in a thread discussing whether or not they are still violating the GPL by not distributing their "modified" source, not whether it was a GPL violation orig

Re:

[LWATCDR]

"Whether this is still a GPL violation is a question for Eben Moglen and the other FSF lawyers,"
Yea... Nothing smells like freedom like lawyers.

Re:

[cortana]

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.

I must correct this. Whether this is a GPL violation is solely determined by the copyright holders of the work (i.e., Dosbox authors). The FSF has nothing to do with it (unless some of the infringed-upon code is owned by them).

Re:

[DrXym]

I expect DOSBox was already capable of running Quake, and any modifications by Steam are probably just in the configuration file to set its memory, Soundblaster, game image and so on.

Re:

[Enderandrew]

That's probably true. However, if you didn't own Quake, then you could purchase it through Steam. The engine was open-sourced, but I do believe the game data files for the Quake series still need to be purchased. Frankly, I think it is a good thing that companies are providing a means to run old games rather than hand them to end-users and assume they can get the game to work under Windows.

id was wrong not to include the license, but I don't think they should be criticized for using DOSBox in the first p

Re:

[mrchaotica]

I don't think they should be criticized for using DOSBox in the first place.

Well, I think they would have been better off using one of the updated derivatives of the GPL'd Quake source to have a native Windows version instead of relying on DOS emulation at all. But I admit that that's only a minor criticism.

Re:

[iainl]

I've been running WinQuake under XP for years. Admittedly I've not tried it with Vista yet, but to they use DOSBox for it, then? I'd have expected it was more just for the old stuff (Commander Keen and so on).

Re:

[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 th

Re:

[Chris Burke]

Well there are "some users" who are stupid on every forum.

A wrapper isn't modification or linking. If a proprietary piece of code "fork(); execv()"s a GPL program, it has not modified the program no matter what requirements the wrapper has before it will actually perform the execv(). If this wasn't the case, then double-clicking on a GPL application in Windows Explorer would constitute a GPL violation on the part of Microsoft.

Extending the already fallacious notion of "linking" to include steam itself is

Re:

[Raenex]

A wrapper isn't modification or linking.

But arguably a wrapper distributed with a GPL'd program constitutes a "work based on the Program". That's why so many companies are releasing GPL'd software and offering a non-GPL'd commercial license.

If this wasn't the case, then double-clicking on a GPL application in Windows Explorer would constitute a GPL violation on the part of Microsoft.

That's different, because Microsoft is not distributing GPL applications as part of Windows.

This is true

[thedrx]

Developers working hand in hand with smaller application authors is not all that uncommon

That's true. I know it's offtopic, but for example Sega, in their old game compilations (like Sonic Mega Collection+ etc) always use open source emulators, like Gens.

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

Re:

[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:

[Fred Or Alive]

I'm sure I read that the Sega Smash Pack used a version of Kgen9x though. IIRC both Kgen and SSP have the same error on Sonic The Hedgehog's title screen (Sonic's torso is overlaid over the rest of the logo, rather than being under it).

I don't know about newer stuff though...

Re:

[Sycraft-fu]

Not really. What happened was that Sega hired Steve Snake who made KEGA et al and had him modify his emulator for them. However they didn't make him sign an exclusive or anything so while he hasn't released the special one he wrote for them he's allowed to use his knowledge to release free ones (which he's done).

Not quite accurate

[codefrog]

(farther and farther off topic)
Actually, the Genesis emulation for SGC was created 'from scratch' by Digital Eclipse (starting with existing 68k and Z80 cores). Steve Snake was indeed involved, primarily in the area of sound emulation, but the main emulation was not based on his fabulous Kega work.

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.

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.

Re:

[maniac/dev/null]

ID-software started fixing this, even before the /. article hit the frontpage.

Copy GPL, paste into readme.txt. I still don't get why people where so upset in the first place.

Re:

[jonadab]

> I still don't get why people where so upset in the first place.

Oh, that's easy. People like to get upset. Any excuse will do.

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:

[Chris Burke]

Ah, God bless people like Carmack, industry leaders with enough clout in their companies that they can actually stick to their principles even if it isn't clear that said principle is good for business!

Re:

[friedmud]

"Unfortunately their licensing stream is drying up. The only AAA licensee of the Doom3 engine was what, Prey?"

Well... that and Doom3 of course... and Quake4 wasn't that much of a modification... and a slight modification of that creates Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

Doom3 sold millions of copies, and it was an internal project so that generates HUGE bucks for id. ETQW will also sell millions. How many million+ copy games do you need to sustain a fairly small company? Not many.

And if you go to Quakecon you

Re:

[Walkingshark]

I'm glad that Carmack isn't evil.

Who'd have thought this generation's Einstein would be making video games?

Re:

[blahplusplus]

"because eventually id Tech 5 is going to be open source also. "

I have to say that John is a visionary, I'm glad he's not so popertarian or wrapped in idealogy he cannot see the bigger picture in adding to the spread, understanding and improvement of human knowledge.

DosBOX configurations file fix

[DimGeo]

Slightly off-topic. Here's a fix I wrote that patches the conf files of DoxBox inside Steam. Sorry for the code, wrote at 1-2 am last night and was a bit under influence. Ignore the silly and/or slow parts. SteamIDDosBoxFix.zip [dyndns.org] . Fixed are: aspect ratio under 1280x1024 TFT displays, sound stuttering, mouse sensitivity. You can edit dosbox.conf yourself, the fix simply replaces your entries into all .conf files (while keeping their format) it can find under Steam's install dir (which is taken from the registry).

The issue has not been resolved.

[SETIGuy]

Regardless of the article the issue has not been resolved, and I hope gpl-violations.org presses the issue.

Not distributing the license text with the binary was only one issue, and a minor one at that. The larger issue is that they are distributing a modified and copy protected DOSBox without providing the modified source code, and the build files required to build the version they distribute. That's a definite violation of the GPL that still needs to be remedied.

The modified DOSBox binary is also lin

Re:

[Tacvek]

They have used a minimalistic wrapper around the main executable. That wrapper simply checks the steam.dll. The main executable is not modified. They distribute the source to the main executable. Replacing the wrapped executable with the main executable works fine. (The main executable is a build of the unmodified DOSBox source).

Nobody cares that they can't wrap the executable in the same way because it makes no difference.

Disclaimer: The above is based on other people's comments in this article. I have no

Re:

[SETIGuy]

They have used a minimalistic wrapper around the main executable.

That makes no difference unless the wrapper can be removed and the executable extracted without needing to be a subscriber. Otherwise it's the same as linking in my book. And if I'm an author, it's my book that counts.

Re:

[DimGeo]

From what the gp said, yes, he is.

troll

[Devir]

the above poster is trolling and is not worth a reply.