Bhruic wrote on Jul 31, 2012, 14:13:
Beamer wrote on Jul 31, 2012, 13:51:
Nice to see I wasn't the only one that goofed on his terminology. "Non-free" means "the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them."
It has nothing to do with price.
I don't understand how so many people are confusing "freedom" and "free". There's a reason he continually uses the word "freedom" in there, and that's because you can't (or shouldn't be able to) confuse "freedom" with pricing.
Look at it this way - all of the words in a book are publicly available. There's nothing "hidden" behind the scenes. Books are, effectively, open-source. And yet people still make money selling them.
Being open-source doesn't mean you have to give it away. Being open-source doesn't mean you give up your copyright (although there are licensing agreements that do, which you aren't obliged to use). All of this talk about people not being able to make money is nonsense.
That's a cute little argument, but you know full well that if his "nonfree" concept of games permitted anyone to distribute them as they like then there would be no possibility for a profitable AAA game. The cost of creating them is far too high to allow free distribution. This isn't akin to piracy where people know it's illegal, know there are potential consequences and generally have other hassles to deal with along with the moral quandary of it. If it were perfectly acceptable to copy and pass around games, then the only games larger than tiny indie titles we'd have would be F2P/P2W things filled with micro-transactions.
He made some great contributions to open-source work. The fault with this guy lies in the fact that he can't shut his fucking mouth and continually insists that anyone who doesn't follow his clearly hypocritical method of thought is 'unethical'.
Paintings are "effectively open-source" too. Just different colored lines and shapes on a background. Why don't you go find an artist and see if he minds you taking a high-res photograph of his painting so that you can print out your own poster-sized copy for free? See how he feels about that.
I have no problem with people who want open-source projects, or people who want to work on open-source projects. But when you start trying to tell people they're unethical or wrong for not doing that, you've crossed the line into douchebaggery.
But by all means, feel free to explain how any AAA title that doesn't include micro-transactions would be financially successful if they had to submit to the freedom of distribution clauses, taking into account the $50-100 million price-tags of development and marketing (and that's a low-ball figure including marketing). It'll be a good laugh.