[Mars]

They relinquished their rights to the source code, meaning that anyone can use or modify it... or compile it.

[Ghostavo]

No, they released the source code, they didn't relinquish their rights to it. They are still their owner.

"Copyright (C) Volition, Inc. 1999.  All rights reserved.

All source code herein is the property of Volition, Inc. You may not
sell or otherwise commercially exploit the source or things you
created based on the source."

As in, you can do anything you want with the code as long as it's not for commercial uses.

[colecampbell666]

Which is fine for our purposes.

[Kie99]

That is actually a ****ing good point. We can't go truly free without redoing the voiceacting. And not many of us here are professional voice actors. Hmm. I wonder if we had to rewrite the dialogue as well.

More important than owning the dialogue is that we don't own the rights to the entire story, the concept of Shivans, the stylisation of their ships etc.  We can't go truly free without rewriting the entire thing with completely new models and story.

[Jeff Vader]

That is actually a ****ing good point. We can't go truly free without redoing the voiceacting. And not many of us here are professional voice actors. Hmm. I wonder if we had to rewrite the dialogue as well.

More important than owning the dialogue is that we don't own the rights to the entire story, the concept of Shivans, the stylisation of their ships etc.  We can't go truly free without rewriting the entire thing with completely new models and story.

Aye. And that is why I still oppose overadvertising. We can't turn this truly free. So it's best to continue the hush hush policy. Those who can find FreeSpace 2 or FreeSpace Open somehow are more than welcome to play. And those who can't... life sucks and then you ****ing die.

[Roanoke]

IIRC, strictly speaking, anything produced[/i using the Source code is also the property of Volition, though it's unlikely they'd ever bother "cashing it in".

[Mongoose]

At least the way I read that copyright, the source code as it was released is what's the property of Volition.  Any code that people write in addition to it is their own property.

[Killer Whale]

I wish to mourn her beautifull majesty, now newbies click on the ubdate link, and go, WTF!!!

[colecampbell666]

Wat.

[haloboy100]

Wat.

[Flipside]

At least the way I read that copyright, the source code as it was released is what's the property of Volition.  Any code that people write in addition to it is their own property.

Correct, there's no legal way that any company could put out a piece of source code telling people they can update it, but not profit from it, and then sell those people's work for a profit themselves without permission.

As for the site, depends how much it would cost to take over, it's not actually a bad idea to have a redirect here, but I also agree this place would have to look a lot more 'Freespacey' on the main page at the very least.

Anyway, I can't afford the registration, don't know about anyone else.

[Bob-san]

At least the way I read that copyright, the source code as it was released is what's the property of Volition.  Any code that people write in addition to it is their own property.

Correct, there's no legal way that any company could put out a piece of source code telling people they can update it, but not profit from it, and then sell those people's work for a profit themselves without permission.

As for the site, depends how much it would cost to take over, it's not actually a bad idea to have a redirect here, but I also agree this place would have to look a lot more 'Freespacey' on the main page at the very least.

Anyway, I can't afford the registration, don't know about anyone else.

If the rights to the domain Freespace2.com are relinquished, the registration should not be "expensive". Once their registration runs out, anyone can buy/register the domain.

[colecampbell666]

By not much how much do you mean?

[haloboy100]

According to my dad, who knows a fair amount about domain names and websites (he created the site and bought the domain for his website from scratch), he says it shouldn't be much more then 10 bucks a month

...or maybe 100 bucks a month. My memory can't figure out how many zeros he was talking

[colecampbell666]

I don't think that domains are on a per-month basis. He was probably talking about hosting space.

A domain, as stated earlier in this thread, is registered for an amount of time.

[BengalTiger]

So what we can do is make a package containing the .exe's,  mediavp's with community created HTL ships, maps, effects and user made campaigns, with a link somewhere to the original FS1 and FS2 campaigns and files somewhere.

THEN we could advertise all we want, because the download would consist of a. an open source code and b. stuff made by modders.

[colecampbell666]

But we haven't HTL'd all the ships, and it would be pretty crappy without voice-acting etc.

[ShadowGorrath]

He meant us advertising ONLY the mediavps, with a link to the full game somewhere else ( like a mediavp advertisment, with also a link to the full FS2 like from HotU ).

[achtung]

According to my dad, who knows a fair amount about domain names and websites (he created the site and bought the domain for his website from scratch), he says it shouldn't be much more then 10 bucks a month

...or maybe 100 bucks a month. My memory can't figure out how many zeros he was talking

More like $9.95 a year for a .com domain.  Either your dad misunderstood you or he doesn't know as much as you think he does. 

Using the freespace2 domain to promote our little community sounds risky.  Very, very risky.  You guys seem to forget that Turey's installer treads some very murky legal water, as does some of the other work done here.  Think a bit before you get all up in arms about this, and keep Interplay's recent resurrection in mind as you do.  I honestly feel they wouldn't hesitate to sue this place into oblivion once they felt we had outlived our usefulness, and I feel redirecting that domain here could give them a wake up call we don't want them to hear.

[Titan]

who cares. We could have star wars in a campaign right now, call it ours, and nothing would happen.