Title: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: kernel panic on September 01, 2008, 06:55:03 AM Last week a bug was opened against the OA debian package in lenny/sid regarding the license of a compiler found in the package. This bug is listed as "Serious (policy violations or makes package unfit for release)":
Quote OpenArena contains a copy of the lcc compiler in the code/tools/lcc directory, which does not seem free software as it does not allow commercial distribution. The text of the copyright file is reproduced below: [...] lcc is not public-domain software, shareware, and it is not protected by a `copyleft' agreement, like the code from the Free Software Foundation. Apparently Tremulous, which is in 'contrib' instead of the 'free' repo, has the same issue. The bug report is here: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=496346 Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: fromhell on September 01, 2008, 07:02:02 AM Timbo influence.
Was in the SVN. Solved. Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: sago007 on September 01, 2008, 08:59:31 AM How solved?
I believe Fedora simply removed the lcc compiler from the package since it is not needed for compiling or running the game. Debian uses lots of custom patches for its packages, so one that deletes the tools directory should be rather straight forward. And just to make sure on what I say: I just tried deleting "tools" and compile again and the make file that is included in the serverfix-tar does not even try to compile it. Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: epicgoo on September 01, 2008, 09:16:33 AM but you need tools to create a qvm?
Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: sago007 on September 01, 2008, 10:15:21 AM I don't know any alternatives to create qvm files.
It is possible to create mods without lcc but only if you compile them as platform-depended so/dll/dynlib files (and then pure or Auto-download wont work). Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: epicgoo on September 01, 2008, 04:28:57 PM I didn't get the situation. But if debian requires source release and do not want lcc in it,
then qvm building must be disabled in the makefile and lcc must be removed from the source. Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: fromhell on September 02, 2008, 04:35:02 AM How solved? I've deleted the lcc binariesI wonder if that code folder is even up to date, i might remove it entirely since those tarballs have everything now i think Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: fromhell on September 02, 2008, 04:35:45 AM I didn't get the situation. But if debian requires source release and do not want lcc in it, that's going to suck because then we'd have to use native dlls and .so's for all 3 platforms for just game code :(then qvm building must be disabled in the makefile and lcc must be removed from the source. Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: andrewj on September 02, 2008, 06:18:02 AM A compiler usually specifies that generated code is NOT a derived product of that compiler (and hence under the same licensing terms). This is pretty natural, as nobody would want to use a compiler that forced restrictions onto their programs.
So I believe it is safe to continue to use LCC to generate the qvms, even though LCC itself is not GPL compatible. Confirmation from the LCC authors should be sought. Bloody hell this sucks, id Software were so gracious to release the Q3 source code under the GPL, yet such an important component turns out to be incompatible with the GPL. EDIT: there is another "no fee" (GPL-incompatible) piece of code namely: code/client/snd_adpcm.c. I think (after a quick browse of the code) this can be removed without causing any problems. Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: fromhell on September 02, 2008, 06:20:32 AM to be honest i wish carmack would just stick to quakec for the rest of the quakes :P
Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: sago007 on September 02, 2008, 07:06:34 AM I consider the problem to be Debian specific.
Yes, you cannot build it up from ground from on a dfsg-free system. But lcc is not part of the game, there is an updated version of the source for it included to help mod developers compile to assembly code. I think iD choose lcc because it was free for them to use, modify and redistribute along there software. That it wasn't free was of less concern to them. One could make an alternative to lcc (today there are programs that makes compilers) but Debian might soon remove mesa/glx (and thereby openGL) from 'main' for being non-dfsg-free and that is a more serious dependency (The Open Arena client cannot run on a system without some sort of openGL). Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: fromhell on September 02, 2008, 07:50:38 AM debians becoming a black hole, soon enough since everyone depends on commerical products in some way to live at all they'd leave everyone out but the farmers and harvesters
Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: andrewj on September 02, 2008, 08:05:19 AM Debian might soon remove mesa/glx (and thereby openGL) from 'main' for being non-dfsg-free and that is a more serious dependency Seriously??? O_oGot a link? Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: sago007 on September 02, 2008, 08:21:02 AM debians becoming a black hole, soon enough since everyone depends on commerical products in some way to live at all they'd leave everyone out but the farmers and harvesters I do like Debian's policies. My previous post was not a criticism of Debian. Debian might soon remove mesa/glx (and thereby openGL) from 'main' for being non-dfsg-free and that is a more serious dependency Seriously??? O_oGot a link? http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=211765 (the most recent posts are not long ago) I found the link to the Debian discussion on gnewsense.org (gNewSense removed it and had a link to the Debian discussion on why) I mainly consider gNewSense a proof-of-concept OS to show how far free software has gotten. While Debian creates an OS for everyday use. Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: kernel panic on September 02, 2008, 06:10:39 PM Quote Debian might soon remove mesa/glx (and thereby openGL) from 'main' for being non-dfsg-free and that is a more serious dependency Quote Seriously??? O_o Got a link? Hahahahh, that was exactly my reaction when I read that... I agree with sago about the Debian policies. Debian folks may come across as lunatics from time to time (we have iceweasel, iceape, icedove and iceowl instead of...you know), but there is a reason for it. The good thing is that the user still has the choice of installing and using whatever crosses her mind, so no problems after all. Well, if somebody has to dig a bit to find some wireless firmware...so be it. gNewSense has its role also, but I think it is a bit impractical as of now. As for the lcc issue, I don't know how this works, why can't another compiler be used instead of lcc for the qvm? PS. You may not know this little program called vrms (Virtual Richard M. Stallman), which reminds you how much evil you have installed...:) Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: damocles on September 20, 2008, 02:10:30 PM So, back in http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=496346 (http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=496346), they simply passed BULD_GAME_QVM=0 and that was that.
I'm not sure if this is as serious as it is, because you'd only need lcc if you were recreating the game assets from SVN -- AFAIK nobody's doing this (since you'd have problems with pure servers anyway, rebuilding the .pk3s). If you're only playing with the engine source and just putting the contents of baseoa/ somewhere else, and you're not attempting to modify OA in any other manner, you wouldn't need to deal with recompiling the QVMs at all, no? (unless your favorite distro wants their own gametype with little penguins / daemons / illustrated suns (http://www.belenix.org/) everywhere) Title: Re: license related bug in OA debian package Post by: epicgoo on September 20, 2008, 02:45:10 PM only problem is to build qvm files from the source, you need non free tools.
So if package is required to be 100% gpl, you cant have qvm building tools. It is as funny as gpl programs that can only be compiled with visual studio (situation is not that bad actually, you can still build dll/so using gpl tools and qvm with free tools) |