A Duo Of Peculiar Games Being Ported To Linux

[developer]

I think some clarifications about Free Software are needed here.

Free Software doesn't necessarily mean free price, but the 4 basic freedoms of Free Software the customer/user has:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.


Two examples of companies that make money with Free Software:

Red Hat: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-sourc...-arrived/10692

NGINX:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking...wing-fast/1538

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-sourc...soft-iis/10101

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-sourc...b-server/10321

The usual ways of making money with Free Software, are: a) selling a Free Software product itself, b) selling support for a Free Software product, c) crowd funding.


Some interesting details:

When you create Free Software for a client, that is not available publicly, it is mandatory only the client having access to the source code of the product, not others.

If you modify a Free Software program, and you are the only user of the modified program ("you" can also include a company), you are not obliged to provide the modified source code to anyone else.


If there are any questions about Free Software, I can try to answer them here. :-)

[Tuxee]

No, it's not like pre-ordering a game some weeks before release.

These people does not have any game.
Who knows, maybe there wont be any game?

[further drivel snipped]

Get yourself informed how Kickstarter works. Or is this beyond your grasp?

[YaPeL]

How about they release the source code?
No, that's what I thought.

They want free money from the community but they don't want to share the source code with the community, they want to hoard on it themselves.

Well, you have a point, in any other software industry, if a big company pays for the development of software from scratch, they get the source code, I don't see why it should be different in this case, after all, WE are paying for the development, WE should own the source code, I think its more like a cultural thing, maybe we should start a campaign or something like that.

[pingufunkybeat]

Free Software crusaders running steam... Lord help us....

[droste]

I hate this and I'm disgusted by all of you zealots hating on everyone who just happen to have a different (read: pragmatic) world view than you.

I hope you see the irony in this ;-)

[uid313]

Seriously? Never used a closed-source application? Ever? Or you only hate closed-source Linux applications because they are corrupting the one true free OS?

Sure, I have.
I use proprietary software everyday at work. Windows and Visual Studio.

Personally, I prefer free open source software and at home I run Linux and try to stick to free open source software. I have one or two proprietary software though, I have Steam atm.

[uid313]

It's not free money, it's pre-ordering the game(s).

No, it's not like pre-ordering a game some weeks before release.

These people does not have any game.
Who knows, maybe there wont be any game?
Maybe the "developers" take the money and take a vacation to Jamaica to pay for blackjack and hookers?
Maybe they get bored and stop develop it.
Maybe they have some internal disagreement and the team dissolves.
Maybe one or more developers get hit by a bus?
Maybe one team member steals all the funds for himself or his gambling addiction?

Maybe the estimated costs are wrong. 10% of the things tend to take up 90% of the time.

[pingufunkybeat]

You are probably right, but there are people just like him who really, truly believe in these things.

Nah, I don't think so.

The "OMG zealots kidnapping your children" FUD mostly comes from people who misunderstand FLOSS activists and what they are saying.

Most of us zealots want essential elements of computing to be available to everyone, including source code: infrastructure, operating system, standard tools everybody relies on, as well as anything that you have to use. In addition, most of us zealots are already happy if we have ONE FLOSS option for each of those, which is fully featured and can freely exchange documents with closed source applications: give me Firefox, KMail and LibreOffice, and you can keep Opera, Eudora and MS Office -- as long as we can all exchange documents without anyone being locked in.

In that respect, an optional game, that nobody really NEEDS, is a very different thing from an essential driver, or a web browser.

[dcc24]

He's obviously a troll, no need to get so heated up.

You are probably right, but there are people just like him who really, truly believe in these things.

[johnc]

I hate this and I'm disgusted by all of you zealots hating on everyone who just happen to have a different (read: pragmatic) world view than you.

It's only a couple of people.