Ryzom goes free

[whizse]

This was a pleasant surprise, Ryzom the formerly defunct MMORPG the FSF tried to buy the rights to a couple of years back, is now free software. Client, server, and art.

http://dev.ryzom.com/news/13

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/ryzom-free-software

[RealNC]

Yeah sure, very open source friendly:

"If you want to run your own server for the game, you have the software to do that, but you won't really have any world data—information about geography, special places, characters, quests, items, and so on—to run it with. Winch Gate Properties, the company that currently holds the copyright for all game materials and runs the official server, has decided not to release that data, to avoid causing disruption for their current player community. People who want to run their own server will need to develop their own world to do so—only a small test world comes with the code."

[whizse]

That's hardly a problem. Setting up your own MMORPG would of course include creating the world, you get the tools to do it.

Even if this was only opening up the client, like Second Life did, it would still be major news.

[RealNC]

That's hardly a problem.

Yes it is a problem. They claim that their game is now open source. That suggests that you can now run that game yourself. You can't.

Creating a world on your own would mean that what you have is *not* Ryzom. Also, have you tried creating the Ryzom world on your own? Start now. In about 5 years you will have something that kind of works. Then, and only then, will you have an open source Ryzom. Good luck.

Ryzom is NOT open source. An MMORPG is defined by its world, not its code implementation. This is just a cheap trick by the company. You're welcome to fix their bugs, but you're not welcome to use Ryzom. How is that open source friendly?

[Zhick]

@RealNC: Wow, apparently you're an even bigger open-source advocate than the FSF, 'cause they don't seem to mind.

The way I see it this has to immediate benefits:
1. A native Linux-client of Ryzom will eventually come around.
2. Developers of foss-games now have all of Ryzoms graphical assets available to them, so foss-games might start looking less shitty.

[whizse]

Dude, you're not looking the gift horse in the mouth, you're sticking your head so long down its throat you risk coming out the other end...

Taking the time to create an MMORPG from scratch has never stopped any of the hobbists hacking on these things right now... it could also be used as a starting point for another commercial game.

Had this only been news of a native client it would have been something to write about.

Had this only been the freeing of the client source, it would have been great news.

Had this only been about the gigabytes of art and other assets from the game, it would have been awesome.

etc.

Ryzom getting to brag about being "open source", even if it isn't by your definition, is something I can live with. Yes, they are probably doing this for an extra bit of PR, bugfixes, ports to other platforms and so on, I honestly don't care about that either.

[RealNC]

The FSF doesn't mind because they don't know the first thing about gaming

You need to ask yourself "what IS Ryzom?" Surely, it can't be only the code and artwork, right? Isn't its virtual world part of it?

What they did is provide an open source engine for you to implement your own MMORPG. Props to them for that. But there are enough other such engines out there, this is nothing special. But they did not open source Ryzom itself. And they shouldn't claim that they did.

I hope my point is more obvious now.

[Setlec]

i recall the engine was already FOSS but knowing that the game and its media asset are available, with GPL and Creative Commons License Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license, it's really a good thing for FOSS games...

[PsynoKhi0]

But they did not open source Ryzom itself. And they shouldn't claim that they did.

Erm so your gripe is that the game world as currently implemented isn't available? That's very much grasping as straws to have something to complain about IMO.

Anyway it's enough open-source for my taste and hopefully for many developers' too

[RealNC]

Erm so your gripe is that the game world as currently implemented isn't available? That's very much grasping as straws to have something to complain about IMO.

Orly? The world as "currently implemented" *IS* Ryzom.