[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Galemp
But all of this is irrelevant unless we find out who owns the rights. THEY will be the ones to raise a fuss.

I say we just do whatever the heck we see the Liscence Agreement as saying, and screw the detailed uber-legalese. We've made efforts to find out who has the rights... Interplay, V, Titus - nobody seems to give a hoot about our puny little irrelevant questions enough to bother to answer.

Who knows, putting FS up on GS may actually bring the owner of the rights out of the woodwork finally.

[Fineus]

Well at that, we can just take it all down and try and reach an agreement. Kinda hard to randomly fire off requests if we don't know who's supposed recieve them. If they're not interested it's not our fault.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Todd Miller over at the VWBB
As for the FS rights, its a mixed bag. The way I understand it, Interplay owns the rights to publish FreeSpace games. Volition owns the rights to most of the remaining stuff you'd want to own rights to. So, if Volition makes an FS game, it _must_ be published by Interplay. That ain't gonna happen, because Volition is owned by THQ and _all_ Volition games will be published by THQ. Its not an uncommon situation, but certainly a confusing one. Basically Interplay can't do a real FS game without V, and V can't do a real FS game without Interplay. Unless of course one of the parties buys the other's rights, but who knows if that'll ever happen - I wouldn't count on it tho.

Dunno about the actual legality of the release, but I think that the highlighted bit will be significant in the "Rebuild everything" argument. As far as I understand from this post, if we want to use Deimoses and Orions and FS Interface, we need to secure Vs permission, which, I'd say, would be easier than securing interplays...

[Setekh]

Well, after mulling over this thread, I've finally written up and sent off this mammoth of an email.

[q]To: Darren Tabor
Subject: RE: A feature: full download of FreeSpace 2 Open


Darren,

I'm overjoyed that you'd like to support our humble little project. We really think that once people will have a fast and easy way to download FreeSpace 2 Open, things will really take off (they're already kinda doing that right now, but everyone second member who's registered recently has asked "Where can I download FS2, I want to play FS2!").

Okay, answers for you. The source code itself doesn't have much of a license agreement, but there are two important legal texts that you will want to look at. The first is from the EULA agreement of FreeSpace 2, which covers the release of all the game data (eg. missions, models, textures, etc.):

You may make copies of the Software for your personal noncommercial home entertainment use and to give to friends and acquaintances on a no cost noncommercial basis. This limited right to copy the Software expressly excludes any copying or distribution of the Software on a commercial basis, including, without limitation, bundling the product with any other product or service and any give away of the Software in connection with another product or service.

The second chunk prefaces each file in the source code release, and covers the release of the code itself.. If you'd like to download the code release (to verify this), you can grab it from the Descent Developer Network (http://www.freespace-2.com/ddn/sources/freespace2, at the bottom of the page). Here's the text:

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.

Now, this concerns me because it addresses your third question. I've bolded the important parts. I'm willing to let Subscribers beta test before final release, but on inspection of these texts, I'm not sure that's possible. I understand that everyone will be able to download our package after the Subscibers have had their initial exclusive period, but I gather that this exclusive period is one of the privileges for which Subscribers pay. If that is so, then I think that would constitute "give away of the Software in connection with another product or service" - that being FilePlanet Subscription. So I'm going to have to reluctantly answer that I do not think such an arrangement would conform to the licensing agreement.

As for the second question of yours: when will a final version be ready for release? Well, with regards to the game data (as aforementioned, meaning missions, models, textures, etc.), the final version is ready. No more alterations will be made to that. With regards to the code, however, we plan to continue working on it for as long as we have ideas for what we want to add to the engine. We offer milestone builds for download at HLP, so if anyone downloads the package and wants to keep up to date with the latest releases, they need only visit HLP occasionally and download them as they're released.

Thanks again for your kind offer, I hope we can still work something out.

Cheers,
Eddie 'Setekh' Woo
Hard Light Productions - http://3dap.com/hlp - Bringing Modders Together[/q]

[SadisticSid]

I've just thought - are we allowed to package the original [V] launcher into this (or can we build a new one that does all the stuff that the original's did, plus have the SCP features in)? A friendly interface is still essential if we want to market this to newbies...

[Setekh]

You're definitely right about the friendly interface being essential. But I don't think the original [V] launcher can be stuck in - wasn't the code for that excluded from the release?

[kasperl]

well, then we have some work for RT.

[karajorma]

What does RT need to include still? The Joystick code is already being tested. What's left?

[SadisticSid]

In the launcher? Something to actually *save* the settings instead of having to set them every time manually would be high on my list.

A front end isn't necessary, I don't think, although it'd be a nice touch.

[karajorma]

I believe that is also on the cards too

[Johnmike]

I can't find it on FilePlanet.  o.o'

[Gloriano]

Because it's not there:)

[Ypoknons]

Originally posted by SadisticSid
In the launcher? Something to actually *save* the settings instead of having to set them every time manually would be high on my list.

The settings are saved for me. Are you using the latest version of the launcher (3.0 - with joystick support)? I remember a build that didn't save my settings and that was annoying.

[J3Vr6]

I think u should have also mentioned to gamespy that currently there is a gray area on who actually owns the rights to the game.  As such, there could be a more recent liscense or copyright agreement that would null and void any previous agreements.

Gamespy is a big boy, you could request from them some help in finding the ultimate owner of the rights to FS2.  Let them use their million dollar company to do the research and find answers.  They will definitely have more pull on finding the information than some kids on a website who love the game (I don't mean offense, just that's how they'll take us as serious when compared to a company).

This is one opportunity for FS2 and SCP that you can't miss out on, guys.  It sounds like you basically gave up on the fileplanet idea.  I say you write back to him and explain it to them and see if they can help in getting answers so they can both benefit from this.

[Setekh]

Originally posted by J3Vr6
It sounds like you basically gave up on the fileplanet idea.  I say you write back to him and explain it to them and see if they can help in getting answers so they can both benefit from this.

Dude... go have a look at my big quote a few posts up.

[J3Vr6]

Dude, I did and that's why I posted.   You really don't know if there's a revised liscensing or copyright agreement when the copyrights exchanged hands to whoever has them now, so most of what you wrote to him could be wrong in regards to the items you referenced, from 1999.  

I still say you write back to him and ask for help in finding the ultimate owner of FS2, so you can finally get to the bottom of EVERYTHING (like the copyright info).  Once you finally have a contact for the actual copyright owners, then there's so many different avenues you can take (by contacting the company who own's the rights of FS2 directly, you can get more information on the copyright agreement or see if they can release anything to you).

Either way, it wouldn't hurt and potentially is a win-win situation.  If Gamespy is interesting in hosting FS2 and think they can get a boost promoting it, then it would be in their best interest in getting to the bottom of it.  They don't want to host something that could get them into legal trouble.  And we want that info cuz there's a million things we can do w/ knowing the owners of Fs2's rights.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

[Setekh]

Originally posted by J3Vr6
I still say you write back to him and ask for help in finding the ultimate owner of FS2, so you can finally get to the bottom of EVERYTHING (like the copyright info).  Once you finally have a contact for the actual copyright owners, then there's so many different avenues you can take (by contacting the company who own's the rights of FS2 directly, you can get more information on the copyright agreement or see if they can release anything to you).

Oops, I understand now. That's the wrong email I pointed you to. My point is, I've already done just as you described - I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do, and I think that GS is as good a way as any that's come along in the past couple of years to do so.

[J3Vr6]

Oh, ok, sweet.  Hopefully they'll get to the bottom of it.

[Sandwich]

I say we announce the free distribution of Freespace 2 on CNN, Fox News, and BBC, no strings attached. The owners of the rights are sure to come out of the woodwork like that.

[J3Vr6]

Heh, they surely will.  And their next breath would be used to take down every little thing you guys have done here I think.