Enjoy your worms, f13ticket... all you did here was moan and complain anyway. Good riddance.

Thanks for sharing.

It's interesting to see what your past motivations really were and that you have developed since.

Wrt Worms: There's nothing wrong with preferring one game over another and I wish you most fun playing it!

It's kinda sad to hear that you were so obsessed about Hedgewars licensing and that you kept "torturing" yourself by playing Hedgewars instead of playing the game you actually wanted to play.

Good to hear you freed yourself from that ideological cage though

There is indeed no need to feel guilty about playing "unfree" games.

Those exist in their own right - they pay the bills and feed the families of the developers and allow them to continue spending their work time developing great games.

The only games that I'd consider bad for humankind are those that advertise themselves as free-to-play, but have purposely ruined gameplay unless you keep paying ridiculous amounts of money with "microtransactions" - best example for that are the EA android "games".

Well anyways, have fun, farewell and take care.

TL;DR:
Basically in this post I just express my confusion about big inconsistencies between the original poster and what f13ticket said. And I pull some possible explanations out of my ass; don’t take them too seriously or even as accusations (I don’t mean to!).

That actually boils down my entire post.

---

I do not like this thread.
It is weird.
Something is wrong here.
Hell, this thread does not make sense to me!

Having sensed something, I read the most part of f13ticket’s old post. Wow, that was a lot to read!

And something is really, really wrong with this thread.

If it is true that the first poster is in fact f13ticket, then I do NOT understand the following sentence:

Oh yeah?

I can’t really believe this, this sentence is contraticted by f13ticket several times:

“While I love playing Hedgewars”
http://hedgewars.org/node/2202#comment-14639

“frankly it's a great game already.”
http://hedgewars.org/node/2202#comment-14682

“Again, I love Free Software and I like this game.”
http://hedgewars.org/node/2202#comment-14850

“In fact, however, I have said that I like the game many times.”
http://hedgewars.org/node/2202#comment-14897

“First, congratulations on your new release of Hedgewars 0.9.16. It is very fun and I hope people enjoy it.”
http://www.hedgewars.org/node/3293

“I love Hedgewars, but had taken a break from it for some time over all of this.”
http://www.hedgewars.org/node/3293

To be fair: I did not find ANY example where f13ticket said something negative. That is, until this thread of course.

But this is all in direct contradiction to “But I never really liked Hedgewars.”, as all the quotes above were made in the past.

Weird. Certainly doesn’t sind like NEVER liking Hedgewars, right?

And now you want to tell us that you kinda forced yourself to play Hedgewars?

Whatever, nobody forces anyone to play anything. That’s freedom!

But the weirdness continues:

Wow, just wow. You not only go back to proprietary software, you even start embracing THEIR ideology now.
You seem to have abandoned most ideas of free software now; I have the impression that you almost argue a bit AGAINST it. That’s not a complaint or even an accusation. My “Wow” just stands for astonishment, surprise.

I would be very interested what was the motivation for the change of mind. But asking now would be probably too late now, since you said you leave … :/
It would be interesting to me to get to hear the reasoning behind someone who used to be a free software advocate but now seems to have abandoned the position.

What is especially interesting here is that you even had an opposite opinion in the past, that software should NOT be owned. This opinion is completely in the opposite now.

You say that nobody should be forced to publish source code. As a free-software advocate by myself, I can agree with that. Forcing people to do anything would be against freedom, so it would be wrong.
But then you go on that there is also nothing [morally?] wrong by hiding the source code of a software is wrong in my opinion.
I don’t think so. You know the reasons. Those 4 freedoms, you know? I don’t have to reiterate that.

Which MAY show that you are not so much interested in free software anymore.

One the one hand, there is a vocal free-software advocate (f13ticket) who strongly opined that it is at least morally wrong to distribute software under unfree platforms and earning money from these platforms. F13ticket was even very deep in, talking about Trisquel and Linux-libre.
Let me get this straight:
Trisquel not your average GNU/Linux distro. It is a GNU/Linux distribution which prouds itself to be totally free. This means there is no proprietary software whatsoever distributed with it. Not just like Debian-free, because Debian also distributes proprietary software. In a seperate repository, at least, but they still distribute it. Technically it its kernel is Linux-libre kernel and not Linux; Linux-libre is a Linux fork without proprietary software. Said advocate criticized Linux itself for being not strict enough in defending freedom.
They criticize that other distributions are sloppy in terms of software freedom
So Trisquel is not the GNU/Linux distribution used by the average GNU/Linux user. The average GNU/Linux user uses Ubuntu. xD Funny but true.
So using Trisquel shows that you are pretty deep into those software freedom issues. I wonder if you actually got Trisquel ever to work properly and had no hardware issues.
I didn’t explain the basic idea behind Trisquel to advertise for it (I never even used it), I just explain it to make a point that f13ticket was pretty deep into free software.

On the other hand, there is a person who has no problems with using proprietary software, to name a few:
- The entire Worms franchise
- Steam
- (I wonder what’s the operating system)
This person seems to be a near total disregard for user freedom now. This is in a extreme contrast to what was written by the advocate.
The only freedom THIS user defends is the freedom of the developers; sadly at the cost of the user’s freedom. The freedom of the developer to release a software under any licence he/she pleases to implies that it is also ok to release a software under draconian terms, so it is neccessarily an anti-free software position.

These are the explanations I can think of:
* The original poster is in fact the same person. If that is true, said person was at least at one point dishonest with their intentions. Or maybe “dishonest” is a harsh word, perhaps confusion? I don’t know. See the “liking Hedgewars” oddity above. Dishonesty would explain the inconsistencies. It would be possible but I would be mildly surprised on how extremely persons can change in just a few years.
* The original poster is NOT f13ticket. This would mean the entire post just appears as it were written by f13ticket and some unknown user may be trolling us right now really hardcore …
* Or it is something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! XD

NOTE:
I do NOT want to start an argument about the pros and cons of free-software or certain licence models or whatever has to do with it. Likewise I don’t want to argue about Hedgewars or Worms here.
(Well, OK. If you REALLY insist, feel free to start a new off-topic thread and invite me but keep this thread clean unless it is on-topic, of course.)

I just have the impression that something is simply wrong with this thread. Am I not alone with this weird feeling or am I just a crazy nutjob right now? xD

Well, goodbye.

Really though, In my opinion I'd keep playing Hedgewars, because Team17 seems to be in a down time right now. Their latest Worms titles, Clan Wars, Revolution, Reloaded, were really bad in my opinion. But, whatever you want, I suppose.

Hey I remember you! Touching you wanted to post this, best of luck for the future

EDIT: Wow. Just read back through the old thread, didn't realise how much of a thirteen year old I sounded when I was thirteen. Sorry guys :P

Flouce tastic.

Mind you Worms+ was the best version. However, started playing Worms Armaggeddon just for the longbow.

and

I though clans was quite good... but they seem slow.

Meh, good riddance. While this game has been closer to a Worms clone at some points than others, it's perfectly fine as it is and I see no reason to buy worms now at all. Anyone who complains wont be missed.

Even if you ignore the libre-ness of Hedgewars, it's still (IMO) the only worms-type game that attempts to improve what Worms Armageddon (IMO the pinnacle of official worms games) did with its fan updates. Of all the official games, Worms Armageddon is the most flexible, supporting features like png maps and demo recording that no other Worms game supports. Most of the Worms games that came after Armageddon were steps backwards, including the transition to 3d (Hogs of War did 3d Worms better than the actual 3d worms games, and it's still inferior to the 2d games), the restriction of 16 worms per map (4v4v4v4 if lucky, 2v2v2v2v2v2v2v2 if not -.-), the transition to 2.5d which may or may not properly align everything to where you would expect it to be (I'm not sure myself), etc. Hedgewars takes most of the good parts of Worms Armageddon and improves the graphics (although it doesn't have a software renderer, my only major complaint of Hedgewars) and modding capability. I don't think even Worms Armageddon supports things like the popular Highlander + Vampire gamemode, along with crazier and more obscure gamemodes that can come through scripts. Hedgewars is extremely flexible, and its flexibility, along with its gameplay, is what makes it a great game, better than many of Team17's nerfed Worms releases over the years. Unless you like 2.5d or 3d, there is no reason to get any worm-type game other than Armageddon and Hedgewars.

Also, f13ticket/accountname0914, I don't want to rub salt on an open wound, but I am curious about your decision to stop using Free Software. Maybe companies have the right to keep their code closed, but under that same logic, don't they also have the right to put drm on it, make it overpriced, and only allow it to run on very specific hardware that may or not be incredibly flawed?

edit: Didn't notice I was bumping this thread. Sorry!

edit 2: I can't believe that editing a post would bump the topic. No other forum does this, and I apologize. Please don't ban me for my mistake.

I can play Worms+: Reinforcements (1995) via Internet through http://tunngle.net. I've already tried and tested. It works! Anyone wanna join?

Bye!

Do you want my response Wuzzy?

The answer is that this community broke me because of how broken it is.

I was not prepared for the type of debate that I would have here. Considering that I came from mostly a console gaming background before I got into Computer Gaming; I simply decided to try to rationalize myself back to a proprietary mind set. I thought, at that time, that returning to the mindset that I grew up with as a child would be easier. That it would be less painful. It’s one thing to game in gated communities on closed platforms. These gated communities and closed platforms are horrible. But, at least you know they’re going to be horrible to creativity and freedom going into them. The pain this community inflicted upon me was that of coming into a community where I thought there was shared values of freedom; only to realize that nobody cared any more about freedom over here than over at camp proprietary. My thought, at that time, was that it would be less emotionally painful to live in a world without freedom that to live in one where people pretend to care about freedom but really don’t. Such as this community. That is why I tried to say that proprietary was okay, and that Worms was okay, and that this game was not fun.

This game was also emblematic to me. Worms 2 and Worms World Party were my first experiences of what online gaming was like. While a played a few other games before hand; Worms 2 was my first Computer Game, as apposed to console, that I really got into. The amount of customization was staggering compared with console gaming at that time.

When I found the ideas of Free Software, started donating to the Free Software Foundation, and started reading the works of Richard Stallman; I wanted to find a Free Software replacement for the Worms 2 generation of games. Warmux was a good try; but Hedgewars was and is far more advanced. Not perfectly though. While the engine is far more advanced compared with the second generation of Worms; Hedgewars leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to variety of weapons and utilities. I’d say Hedgewars has about one third of that of Worms World Party. Hedgewars’s online player base is, like Worms second generation, also basically dead. So, it’s an interesting situation where we’re coming upon the 1.0.0 release and we have a better engine here but less “game” in terms of weapons and utilities.

Yet, like many times before when I tried to ‘go back to sleep’ and pretend everything in world proprietary is fine; I am jilted awake by just how awful the proprietary world really is. I’ve seen in the past month or so both a DOOM mod pack and a mass online Mario game be shut down by companies. Both times the creators tried to pull any infringing material after they got the cease and desist order and both times they were told to shut down completely anyway.

I realized from these examples that proprietary software is not the way. It stands in the way of creativity, expression, and freedom. So, I am planning to start my membership with donating to the Free Software Foundation again on the Fourth of July. That got me thinking about how I said goodbye here and that I left the situation back then basically ambivalent to Free Software. I came back here to make this post and correct that wrong. I am not perfect. I have had to test the ideas of Free Software many times on a personal level to see if I really believe in them or not. I have stumbled and back-slid multiple times. But, I back-slid the worst I ever have here on this forum.

Frankly, like I said, this community’s lack of care broke me back then. If you want an answer for that post of mine from the past. That’s the answer. I am back again now and I am my Free Software self again now.

If I can take a moment, I can explain where I was coming from, what I was thinking, and exactly what I think about all of you.

I was in college at the time that I discovered Free Software. As I do not know how to program, but still would like to learn someday, I approached Free Software more from a philosophical and ethical stand-point more than a practical one. This is correct, I feel, because it is an ethical philosophy; not really a development methodology. Also, the benefits of Free Software go out to everyone; not just to programmers. People who want to think of it as a development methodology and get rid of its ethical philosophy coined the term “open source” and “source available” to show they care more about the development of the software than the freedoms of the users using the software.

The fact that so many software developers, like Hedgewars and the Linux Kernel, choose to license their software under the GNU GPL is rather much a tragedy of the Free Software community. It provides the temptation of functionality over the purity of the ethical philosophy. This is true because these people develop the software licensed under the GNU GPL for insincere reasons. Typically these reasons are usually either for exposure or because it’s the ‘cool’ thing to do when you’re working on an “open source” project. Anything less than a full commitment to the ethical philosophy of Richard Stallman and the Free Software foundation is an insincere reason to license under the GNU GPL. Clearly, this is the case for Hedgewars. Otherwise, the developers wouldn’t have tried to get the software onto a closed platform app stores that violates both the legal letter of the law and the spirit of the GNU GPL and the FSF. At the very least, even though it is a tragedy that Hedgewars team and Linux Kernel team care nothing about freedom, there are some practical benefits to their software being under the GNU GPL. But, the ethical philosophy failing of both development teams is still more important than the practical benefits. That is why these two projects are tragedies.

What Hedgewars did by going on the Apple App store is not technically illegal, as far as I can tell. I did report them to the FSF and they responded by telling me that the Hedgewars team, sense they placed the program on the Apple App Store this way, were indeed in violation of the GNU GPL if it was anyone else doing that. Sadly, you can’t legally force the developers to fallow their own license. The FSF informed me that the only way they could do anything about it was if I could get at least one of the right’s holder from the project to speak up and resist. Sense the rights holders were all in agreement to violate the GNU GPL together, the FSF could not step in. It was clearly immoral, but not illegal. So, the FSF and nobody else can do anything to stop them.

It is truly sad and a failure of the United States Copyright Law System that it does not allow for class action lawsuits for the general public or for someone like the FSF to intervene in cases like this. It makes it so that nothing can be done. It was my hope that sense you all would not listen to reason that the FSF could legally force you to comply with your license. That is why I reported you. To my understanding, and I could by wrong, the FSF has sued to force enforcement in the past where they had the power to sue and the offending people would not listen to reason and comply. The FSF can do that when they are the rights holders of the software themselves. Such as when they originate the software and when people make them the rights holders of the software. Hedgewars team did not make the FSF the rights holders of their software. The only other way they can step in is if one of the rights holders asks them to. But, sense all of the rights holders of Hedgewars decided to violate the GNU GPL together, that ended that route of being able to force compliance with freedom.

These are the best to quotes from the below link to sum up both what I have learned and how I feel about the Hedgewars community.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html

“Who has the power to enforce the GPL? (#WhoHasThePower)
Since the GPL is a copyright license, the copyright holders of the software are the ones who have the power to enforce the GPL. If you see a violation of the GPL, you should inform the developers of the GPL-covered software involved. They either are the copyright holders, or are connected with the copyright holders. Learn more about reporting GPL violations. “

“Is the developer of a GPL-covered program bound by the GPL? Could the developer's actions ever be a violation of the GPL? (#DeveloperViolate)
Strictly speaking, the GPL is a license from the developer for others to use, distribute and change the program. The developer itself is not bound by it, so no matter what the developer does, this is not a “violation” of the GPL.

However, if the developer does something that would violate the GPL if done by someone else, the developer will surely lose moral standing in the community.”

So, in short, Hedgewars team decided all together to do what would violate the GNU GPL if done by anyone else but them. Got pissed at me and tarred and feathered me for having the decency to call them out on their crap. Then, as the rights holders, decided not to sue themselves. What they did would be breech of license, had any of us done it. That’s why the team has indeed lost all moral standing in my eyes. It’s only not illegal because, technically, a license only dictates what others receiving the software can do. Not what the rights holders can do. So, it sets the rights holders ‘above the law’ in a sense. They can do what nobody else can. Which is complete anathema to the spirit of the GNU GPL and the FSF.

Again, unfortunately, there is no way to collectively enforce the license on the rights holders. The community should never be in a place where it has to. Nor should the development team ever put the community in such a place.

I came from Trisquel and its forums. When a non-free package was discovered to have slipped past defenses. This is what would happen. It was reported. If it was found to be infringing, it was deleted. If it could be replaced, it was. If not, then the functionality would be lost. Better to loose functionality than have it in a proprietary way. Sort of a take on “give me liberty of give me death.” Better that the program not exist at all than to exist as proprietary. Better that it not exist at all on a closed platform than for it to sacrifice its freedom to be on a closed platform.

What I expected to happen when I reported to the team what was happening with the news story of GNU GO and what happened to it on the Apple App Store was the fallowing. One; see if there was a way to get Hedgewars on the platform without sacrificing its freedom. Two; if not, abandon the closed platform. That would have been the ethically and philosophically correct action to take under the FSF and the GNU GPL. So, logically, it’s what I expected to be done.

So, what we had here was a culture clash. I came from forums where this would have been done in a heartbeat to preserve freedom and respect the ethical philosophy of the license. Instead, I was mocked, called names, and basically tarred and feathered by everyone on here. Both by regular players and the development team.

Here’s my question. Why did you choose the GNU GPL when you clearly don’t believe in it? Of all the Free Software licenses you could have chosen, the GNU GPL is the one you choose when you want to tell the world that you do indeed agree with the FSF and Richard Stallman and people coming to use your software should, by logical extension, expect that culture to be cultivated by the developers in their community. What you all do is the equivalent of wearing an ‘I’m with the FSF badge’ when you all honestly couldn’t care less.

So, that’s why I acted the way that I did here. If you actually understood and respected the ethical philosophy of the license you placed your software under, you should have been standing up against your own actions yourself. I, as a mere user of the software, shouldn’t be the one to have to police the developers into fallowing the rules of their own license. Again, not that you legally have to. But, when you pick the GNU GPL, you do indeed have a moral commitment as well as a legal commitment. Lest you properly and deservedly “lose moral standing in the community.”

This is why I felt personally attacked by how everyone retaliated against me. Acting as if I was in the wrong. Acting as if I was nothing but a complainer. All I was doing was trying to police the development team into fallowing the spirit of the license they chose to put their own software under.

People yelled at me for telling the developers what to do with the software they made. All I was doing was telling them to fallow the spirit of the license they picked themselves. Again, something they should have been doing on their own for ethical reasons and I shouldn’t have had to police their actions as a mere user of the software. I did logically feel a sense of ownership to the software. When you put a project under the GNU GPL, you are declaring it community property. Why then should the developers be surprised when someone talks to them about an issue of ethics concerning the license of the software with a sense of ownership of the software when they picked a license that is all about ethical philosophy and community ownership? The developers are saying, in short, ‘We put this software under the GNU GPL so that you all own it and we believe and adhere to these ethical and philosophical principles. Unless we want to do something with the software that violates this ethical philosophy. Then, in that case, we own the software. We’ll do what we want with it. If you don’t agree with us violating the ethical philosophy of this license, sit down and shut up.’

I do not care if you sell the software for a profit. A lot of people got hung up on what I said concerning this. I just mentioned that selling the proprietary version on the Apple App store was adding insult to injury. I also got disagreement from people who do not understand the GNU GPL when I said that not only could the development team sell Hedgewars for a profit, but so can everyone else. This is true, but to be legally clear that might only be to a certain extent. GNU GPL Software can be sold by everyone for a profit, even if it’s not the people who made it. But, to be specific here, that only covers the Hedgewars Software; namely the engine. If the art assets are under a different license, I or anyone else would have to gut the assets from the software and replace them with license compatible art that we either found, commissioned to have created, or created ourselves to sell the Hedgewars software for a profit ourselves. If it upsets you that everyone can sell your engine for a profit; I must ask again, why did you choose the GNU GPL? More information on how everyone can sell GNU GPL software for a profit legally can be found at this link.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

I don’t want to say you should not have picked the GNU GPL. The fact that you did has allowed for what is an amazing and fun game engine to be Free Software. I don’t want to discourage you and or others from picking the GNU GPL and or any other Free Software License in the future. But, what I will say is that I still don’t understand is why you picked the GNU GPL. You clearly don’t adhere to or believe in the ethical philosophy completely and I got verbally harassed for daring to point that out.

Sense I am gearing back up to get into Free Software again, I wanted to come back and correct my past post here and tell you all exactly where I stand now and what I think about you all.

Congratulations on nearing the 1.0.0 release. When I originally came here, I was hoping to find a great Free Software Licensed replacement for the second generation of Worms games. I have. It is a great engine and it is fun to play. I am truly glad that you have made this engine and have licensed it the way that you did. I am sorry that I don’t know how to program and couldn’t help advance the engine in that way. I was hoping that sense the software was under the GNU GPL that I would find a community of like minded people here that shared the same ethical philosophy that I do and that I could be a happy player and a welcomed member of this community. Well, that didn’t happen at all. I still check back and play the game now and again. But, considering how much everyone here hates me for speaking up when I felt it was right to do so, I just can’t get into playing this game the way I used to before I got into a fight with everyone here. Plus, again, this game seems basically dead online anyway. I only ever see four to five players or so whenever I pop in and take a look. So, it’s basically pointless to try to be a member of this quickly evaporating and almost completely dead community anyway.

Sorry that things couldn’t have been different. But, it was all you peoples’ fault and not mine. So, not sorry in a sense that I did anything wrong. Because I didn’t. The only thing I did wrong was back-slide on Free Software for a while when I let this toxic community get to me emotionally. But, sorry in the sense that I’m sorry that this community’s culture wasn’t different and that this couldn’t have turned out to be a nice place to be.

Most of the users of Hedgewars don’t care about the freedom of Hedgewars any more than the developers do. This is because the users just want Hedgewars to be on every platform; regardless as to whether or not it violates the ethical philosophy of the license. The development team just wants exposure, so they’ll flagrantly disregard the ethical philosophy of the license to get the exposure that they really care about and to shut up the players who want Hedgewars on all the platforms that they can get Hedgewars on. The developers do nothing to cultivate a culture of liberty, because they don’t care about liberty themselves. The developers will join in with the users to tar and feather anyone who brings up the issue of the ethical philosophy of the license because the developers care more about exposure and about pleasing the people who want Hedgewars on all the platforms they can get Hedgewars on by getting Hedgewars on more platforms than they care about liberty.

In short, the ethical culture of the developers and the community here with Hedgewars is completely ass backwards compared with the license that they (for some still unknown reason) decided to license Hedgewars under.

Well, I’ve said my piece. Have a nice night.

First of all, I am now part of the core developer team. You might have noticed.

I'll go right into it …

Yes. It's the dark truth behind every free software license. Every free software license only works by the original copyright holder choosing to surrender some of their sweet, sweet copyright monopoly powers.

But personally, I think copyright is truly damaging especially in this day and age when copying is basically free. The Internet is a giant copying machine. On the other side, you get punished for copyright infringements.
Just read the tech news and you will find an endless stream of cases in which copyright is used as a tool for censorship, to shut down negative opinion, creative derivative works, make it harder to repair your own hardware, fan art, fan games, be it commercial or not. This is ironic considering that the usual justificion for copyright is to “promote creativity”.

The whole idea of copyleft is a big hack to turn copyright on its head. But its important to understand it is still based on copyleft.

The discussion about whether to copyleft or not is probably as old as the term “free software” itself. First, I do admit it did help to mitigate some of the worst abuses caused by copyright. Yet copyleft is not without its problems either.

Personally, I am actually leaning slightly towards the “no copyleft” faction. My rationale is purely for practical reasons. The biggest problem that copyleft licenses have IMO are that they create stupid, stupid “incompabilities” with each other. You cannot just combine copyleft licenses. If you research it a little, you will find tables. Therefore, I prefer non-copyleft licenses when I have a choice, simply to make life for potential users as painless as possible. However, I am not openly against copyleft either.

I have no data, but I guess that there is a good bunch of free software out there where 2 technically incompatible (but libre) licenses were combined. And people just didn't notice. And the few people who know, just keep their mouth shut.

If everyone in the free software community would start to enforce their licenses that seriously (so that free software projects start to sue each other), it would do a lot of chaos for no gain.

I can't recall any case where someone tried to seriously abuse the GPL by, like, reposting Hedgewars, claiming it as their own game and failure to provide source code. That would indeed be a problem.

The question of whether to support non-free OSes is an interesting one. Basically it's mostly about Windows. Windows is still the dominant OS for games (sadly). I wish it would be different, but it isn't. You might call it a “deal with the devil”.

For a game, I think big OS coverage is important when it's multiplayer (like ours).

My personal rationale is, while Windows is certainly non-free, its still be. Most people just cannot switch their OS like their clothes. It takes time to set up and get used to it. Also, there is no free software licenses that forbids you to release a software for Windows. Restricting that would be against the ideals of free software, actually, especially freedom 0.

Back in my Windows days, I also started with having more and more free software programs on my Windows machine simply because they were easy to access. VLC, GIMP, Claws-Mail, Sylpheed-Claws, you name it. Although I didn't understand the concept of “free software” at all back then. So I think its a great “gateway drug”. I think of this of simply gaining visibility in the proprietary world, which is really important. If we stay in our libre bubble, we will have a hard time with convincing people.

By the way, I myself was pretty heavily opposed when people started proposing to add Hedgewars to Steam. Steam is different, as it's not an OS and can be avoided much easier. I hated Steam even back in my Windows days, I always remember it as the software I was forced to install in order to play a few particular games. Very annoying. To me, this is personal. So logically it was very easy to me to reject Steam.

As for commercial, yes, I totally agree that commercial usage is not in violation of free software at all. And that it's not neccessarily an evil thing. What many people don't seem to understand that there's a difference between selling a software and selling a software while claiming a monopoly (=copyright) over selling it.
I was in an argument about this far more often than you'd imagine. I usually just end up linking to https://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC because I am tired of repeating the arguments again and again and this page pretty much nails it.

Well, that's not our problem because Hedgewras really is 100% libre, both code and artwork. :P So, “selling Hedgewars” should not be illegal in most countries (copyright laws are complicated ...). As long you comply with the licenses. This is not unique to Hedgewars, this is true for ALL free software.

But there's a catch: You still would have to compete with us, who offer Hedgewars without cost. Good luck!

We are very strict in what kind of contributions we accept. We make it as a hard condition that ALL contributions are released under a libre license compatible with the Hedgewars licenses. Otherwise it cannot be a part of Hedgewars. This is by design.

---

Ooff, that was already quite some text and yes, its poorly structured as I just write out things as they come out of my brain and I could probably write about a million other things but I think it's now time to stop.

For all this talk about about freedom, let's not forget the point of Hedgewars is to have fun, too!

I got a feeling that it's what is actually happening, with all the enmity towards Facebook, Discord, Steam, GitHub etc. Core devs are really hesitant in reaching these grounds.

I imagine Hedgewars could sell really well on CDs in regions where internet isn't very accessible. Or in regions where some parts of the internet are inaccessible (including official Hedgewars website for whatever reason).

Also, MIT masterrace.

Hello. I wanted to respond to your response to my message. It has taken me a while because I assumed that I would get nothing but hate for it and wanted to wait until I felt enough time had passed that I could be prepared to look at the replies. I was happy to see that I didn’t get yelled at this time.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened back then. Years, actually. The situation was complex. Though, it shouldn’t have been. Looking back, I’m not so much upset about what Hedgewars did as I am the reaction that I got from people, especially developers, for pointing out what I pointed out.

I feel that this is important to point out because it is a key distinction and is the most important issue that I took with Hedgewars.

I learned three key things.

1: The team was going forward with the Apple I-Pad version anyway.

2: The source code for this version would be made available under a Free Software License.

3: No one can legally force a rights holders to abide by the same license that they put their project under. As the rights holders, they can legally do whatever they want.

Point one was basically expected. While I personally wouldn’t have put Hedgewars on the I-Pad, I assumed before I even raised the issue that with the work done toward this version and with so many people looking forward to it that it was unlikely that the devs would pull the project as protest against Apple. Nor did I realistically assume Apple would change its mind on its policies. With so few people pulling their projects in protest; why would they? So, the fact that the Hedgewars team went forward with the project wasn’t exactly a shocker for me.

Point two was something I did not know until much further into what had become a flame war when someone finally realized that it was a good idea to tell me this. To this day I am still not sure why the people responding to me didn’t lead with this. That would have been the logical thing to do. If you’re going to go ahead and put the project up on a closed platform, releasing the source code of the project as Free Software on the side is the best way to deal with the situation. This really isn’t all too different than ID Software releasing DOOM Engine as Free Software while still selling the original proprietary engine on Steam and GOG. Freedom is still available for those that want it in an easily accessible way. As such, it mitigates much of the issue as much as possible of releasing a version on a closed platform.

Point three was something of a surprise to me. I did not know this about the Free Software Licenses. While I later found this to be true, looking at the FSF site, it’s not something I really understood at the time. I just assumed the license was the rules everyone had to fallow; not just everyone aside from the rights holders. This was a fundamental misunderstanding on my part and something I never faced before.

So, while I would have personally not have tried to bring Hedgewars to a closed platform (I-Pad) in the first place; Hedgewars team went about bringing Hedgewars to the I-Pad in the best possible way that they could have.

The reason I wouldn’t have bothered is because I have always hated Apple for being so viciously proprietary and restrictive. They are often actually even far worse than Microsoft in this regard. People think of Apple as a ‘rebel’ alternative to Microsoft being big business. Especially with the famous 1984 commercial. But, the fact of the matter is, Apple is so closed off that you can’t even install software you want onto the I-Pad without it being approved onto the App Store first. Unless, of course, you jail-break the device. For a company that made its name on a commercial of breaking free; it’s ironic and sad that Apple is closer to the idea of 1984 than most other computer makers.

You mentioned that you don’t like Steam because it’s a closed platform. But, Apple takes that to an entirely new level. Steam is a closed, DRM encumbered software platform. Apple’s I-Pad is a buttoned down prison from its hardware, to its operating system, to its app store. That was the core problem with all of this. The GNU-GPL is incompatible with Apple’s App Store policies. No freedom allowed. Coupled with the fact that you can’t install software on an I-Pad without Apple approving it for their App Store. Apple doesn’t see its hardware, its OS, and its App Store as three separate platforms. They see them all singularly as one integrated platform. Or, more to the point, one integrated product.

At the end of the day, Apple doesn’t sell people Pad Computers or Pocket Computers (Smart Phones.) They sell them Pad Consoles and Pocket Consoles. Apple has ‘consolized’ computing by making their Pad Computers and Pocket Computers walled gardens and closed platforms as much as the Nintendo Switch, X-Box One, and Playstation 4 are.

So, I don’t think it’s really apples to apples to compare putting Hedgewars on I-Pad to putting Hegewars on Steam. The apples to apples comparison would be putting Hedgewars on I-Pad to putting Hedgewars on the Nintendo Switch. It’s worse than putting it on Steam, because the entire platform is a closed platform. The I-Pad is not a “real computer.” It’s a console.

That’s why I hate Apple. That’s why I, personally, wouldn’t have bothered to even try to bring Hedgewars to the I-Pad. Because you’re going to run into the same license problems as you would if you were to try to bring Hedgewars to any other console. These are not “real computers.” They are “toys” for people who don’t care about freedom and don’t know how to use “real computers.” They aren’t even allowed to install software on the I-Pad without getting ‘big brother’ Apple’s approval first. It’s sad. And, in my view, it’s disgraceful that people buy these Apple products. It’s like a giant crowed of people shouting out at the top of their lungs, ‘Yes, take my freedom! Take my money! Treat me like an ignorant child! Enslave me! Deny me my most basic rights and usability of my devices! Treat me like complete trash! I love it! Take more of my freedom and more of my money away!’ It is a truly idiotic and a sad state of humanity that Apple has such a completely undeserved fallowing. They are a symbol of everything wrong with computing today and a large segment of the population just eats it up. It’s shameful and adults should know and act better than this.

Richard Stallman wrote this on the passing of Steve Jobs.

“Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.

As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.

Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.”

So, considering that this is my view of Apple, I think you can see why I would have seen Hedgewars dropping the I-Pad project as no great loss. Why should a Dev team of a GNU GPL Licensed game be chomping at the bit to bring their project over to a closed platform that couldn’t be more of an antithesis to the virtues of Free Software?

The entire idea was a doomed voyage from the start. The team back then should have known better. It was only a matter of time before it hit an iceberg. As a player of the game that enjoyed it; I basically took the role of passenger walking the ship’s deck that saw an iceberg coming and started shouting my head off. ‘Hey everyone! Hello? Does anyone hear me? GNU GO was just pulled from the Apple Store over incompatibilities between the GNU GPL and Apple’s conditions concerning software on their App Store. Iceberg! You’re heading right for it! Hello?’ I’ve always been of the mind that it’s best to point these problems out as soon as possible. I’ve sense done so for other projects. Usually, people are glad to hear it. It allows them to see and fix license issues early. Or, at the very least, make it clear to people from as soon as possible what the situation is.

I was the one that pushed for clarity on the license situation of IKEMEN GO. The source was available, but no license given. As the FSF site says, unless the software is stated to be Free Software, USA Copyright law presumes full non-free status; even if it is “source available.” Everything published is proprietary property of its author, unless specifically and clearly stated otherwise. The law defaults to that, not to public domain; at least here in the USA. I e-mailed the author in both English and Japanese and got someone on IKEMEN GO PLUS to contact him also. Because of this, he placed the software under the MIT Expat License.

IKEMEN GO PLUS went on to use the same license. I also noticed a problem with a fork, that ended up being a problem with all such programs. They still stood on proprietary files from MUGEN to function. The fork was aware of this and separated these files out already. But, because I pointed it out to the community in the forums, and got some clear answers to these questions; everyone learned clearly what the situation was and the fork re-arranged things even more to try to make the situation more visibly clear to people ahead of time.

If someone had tried to use this engine for a commercial fighting game, which the MIT License allows for, they could easily have been sued by Elecbyte for using their files; without even having known they were stepping into this arena unless they were paying really close attention. Now, there is a much bigger warning sign for people.

I asked a similar question to a Mario themed platform game engine that was “GNU GPL.” The answer was that while the level editor and other enhancements they made were GNU GPL extensions to the engine; the engine itself is still a proprietary project someone else made. This was kind of mentioned; but not word for word where licensing was listed. So, considering the maker of the level editor also made an engine; I just assumed they were using his engine. Nothing word for word said they weren’t. But, when I raised the issue, I got clarity for myself and for the entire community. Again, pointing out to people a potential legal pit fall should they have assumed everything was under the GNU GPL.

I am not annoying or worthless. I don’t know everything. I’ve learned a lot along the way. But, I always feel its best to point out license issues for clarity so that people see these icebergs coming. So that they can either fix the situation or avoid the software if need be. But, often, these issues are not presented in a forthright manner and are instead glossed over and kind of swept under the rug. Shoved into the back of the closet as a skeleton. This is not professional.

Hedgewars was different than these other issues.

A proper first response from the Hedgewars dev team, back then, would have been the fallowing.

“Thank you for your concern in pointing out the Free Software issue of the incompatibility of the GNU GPL License and Apple’s policies concerning their App Store. This incompatibility was not clearly understood when we started work on the project and had promised it to our fans. However, sense so much work has been done on this project at this point; we have decided to go ahead with publishing the project anyway. It would disappoint a large amount of our fans if we pulled the project now, after having promised it to them; and we would feel that our hard work would have gone to waste if we did nothing with it. We value freedom here at Hedgewars. We always have and always will. We will be publishing the project on the side under the GNU GPL License for all to have access to. While this is not a perfect solution to the problem Apple’s terms have caused; it is the best compromise that we feel we can give our fans. Thank you again for raising this issue; as it is important to us.”

That WAS NOT the first response I got from people here. From fans to devs, the very first thing everyone did was scream down my throat. They called me horrible names. And they dismissed the issue of freedom and Free Software out of hand; as if it was of no real concern.

I’ve had this reaction from people before. But, only on old proprietary projects that I tried to convince to go Free Software. When I realized it was a lost cause, I would just walk away. I kind of expect that reaction from those projects and their communities.

I did not at all expect that reaction from a project under the GNU GPL. People just didn’t care. They wanted Hedgewars on I-Pad. I pointed out a problem with making that happen. They wanted Hedgewats on I-Pad anyway; Freedom be damned. And, to ice the cake, I was the “bad guy party pooper” for daring to have the audacity to point out the problem. Other projects were happy to have me point out issues. It made for clarity. This one crucified me for it.

It’s truly as if the expectation was that I just sit down and shut up about it. ‘Yeah, it’s wrong. We don’t care. Sit down, shut up, jerkwad.’ That was the condensed version of the reaction that I first got from everyone. I kind of expected that from the general fans. I did not expect that from devs. It’s shady, unprofessional, and completely disrespectful.

At that point, I lost all respect for this community. So, my replies going forward from that point reflected that. I could name call as much as anyone else. If people wanted a flame war rather than rational discussion, I could do that too. Believe me, I grew up on forums in the early 2000’s, I knew how to host a flame war. Lol.

But, all things considered, I didn’t want a flame war. I wanted an important issue fixed. Or, at the very least, I wanted thanks for caring enough to point out the important issue. Other Free Software Game communities treat me with respect when I raise issues. They either fix the issues, or at least explain them for clarity. They don't crucify me for caring.

Looking back, I don’t really care that Hedgewars was put on the I-Pad. Again, I wouldn’t have done it myself for the obvious reasons that I explained in detail. But, the team did it in the best possible way that they could have done it by also making the source code available under the GNU GPL License.

What I do really care about was that I was crucified by the community, including devs, for raising an important issue. That’s NOT how you deal with a complaint from fans who care about the project. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have said anything. I had liked the game and was trying to do what I felt was best for it by raising an important issue. That should have been taken into consideration and treated with respect.

The reaction I got on this forum was shady, unprofessional, and childish. And, honestly, I’ve never really forgiven this place for that. It made me not want to come back to the forums. It made me not want to play the game. I made me not want to recommend the game to others. Frankly, it made me not care about the game much anymore because the community was so unwelcoming to me for making such a basic criticism. I guess I struck a nerve.

I do still want an apology. But, frankly, considering almost everyone from back then is gone now; I don’t really even know who I would be expecting an apology from at this point. This place used to have an active forum and many games hosted at once. The forum hardly has any activity now and I’m lucky to see four rooms hosted in the game. It looks like most people have moved on from this game. So, I’m expecting an apology from a "ghost town" for how they treated me literally years ago.

My problem isn’t that Hedgwars was put on the I-Pad. My problem was that people were so horrible to me for raising an important license issue about Liberty. My problem is not with the game. It’s with the community and dev culture that had surrounded it back then.

I’m not mad at you, Wuzzy. If I recall correctly, you were always very level headed during the entire thing. I also like the mod work you do on Minetest. Congratulations on your new position here at Hedgewars. So, I don’t really expect an apology from you. You were nice.

The three points of key information did not come out nor were they made clear until I was pretty much in the middle of a flame war this community started with me. Why these points were not presented by the community first and why they were not presented in a professional way all bundled together like what I wrote here as an example is still confusing to me. People here decided to get mad at me first, then try to explain things to me later. Why not stay calm and professional and explain things to me first instead of getting mad? That would have been nice.

Sorry for the new account. I didn’t intend to reply to this as I assumed my message would get a wall of hate posts back to me (which was how things went down here before) rather than spawning a reasonable discussion. So, I decided to actually respond.

In your new position, it is my hope that you continue to be reasonable with people. You have always been nice. I might try to get into this game again soon; now that 1.0.0 is close to done. I’ll think about it.

Hey there.

I read your lengthy post and also partially reviewed the original thread.

While I do agree that the responses you got weren't professional and your suggested response would have been much clearer,
please be aware Hedgewars is not professional.
Hedgewars is not professionally developed by any company or and the people that develop games or manage the community don't do so professionally.

It's a spare time occupation, not a professional one.
So while a professional handling of the situation could have been nice, it might be a bit optimistic to expect such, to be honest with you.

Also from what I saw the responses were at first still very civil and very quickly even indicated that the source would always be available under GPL anyway,
however you are right saying that it wasn't stated clearly that this also pertains to the ports for the apple platform.

However, things escalated eventually, because you came from a place of ignorance (not knowing what a license actually is and means),
while at the same time becoming increasingly and excessively preachy, if not almost morally authoritorian about the topic.

That you also insinuated that we want to basically rip off the open-source community, that you degraded us as immoral for not believing in your somwhat radical views,
just added insult to injury and e.g. and some of us devs/community members clearly got annoyed and tired of that quickly and made you feel that in our responses.

As you kept insisting I eventually decided to close down the thread as it was more about radical views on ethics rather than the original question of the topic,
and I did not see any way the conversation would return to factual discussion of the topic (especially because you already agreed it's concluded).

I'd probably end up doing the same again if things developed the same way, especially because you seem to be unable to just let things go after they have been concluded.
This post of you actually proves that again, as it has been over nine years and you are still writing novels about the topic as if it was a big deal.

Nine years ago you were questioning the legality of the apple-platform ports, all sides concluded it's not illegal given the licensing is done the right way.
Then people (including you, me and others) got increasingly rude and had some heated but eventually irrelevant off-topic exchange about freedom, ethics and whatnot.

My apologies if that made you feel unwelcome and disrespected, but believe me the feeling was mutual.
Sure you could argue it doesn't matter how we felt, because we were a product-providing company and you were the customer and should be treated professionally - except that this wasn't and isn't the case, at all.

We are just a community and as such people will mostly speak for themselves and meet you on eye-level.
If you treat them with disrespect, don't expect them to react "professionally".

You are not entitled to any special treatment here, nobody is.

In this forums you are an equal to us: We're not a business, the Hedgewars devs will not go to lengths to keep you satisfied and playing.
They do not make any money off the amount of players or the size of the community, they just enjoy developing the game.

Anyway, have a nice day.

Thank you.

It was a learning experience for me. I'm 30 now. So, I would have been somewhere around 21 at the time. I came off as "preachy" because I was still in college and I was still a very young adult. The ideas of Free Software were still very new to me at that time and I was very passionate and excited about them.

It was only a few years prior that I was in high school and had installed ubuntu for the first time. It was probably just a year or so into my learning the differences between Richard Stallman's views, Linus Torvalds's views, and the whole GNU + Linux naming debate. So, I was still very new to the whole Free Software VS Open Source naming thing and why the FSF pushes so hard for that.

So, I probably did come off as "preachy." I did just basically come out of my personal study which essentially was a self-developed FSF 'boot camp.' So, that explains where I was at back then.

I'm no FSF saint. I have often been hypocritical with my actions. I purchased several 4K movies even though they have DRM on them and I know I shouldn't have. I have gone back and forth between GNU + Linux and windows several times over the years. But, through it all, I do like the ideas of the FSF. I like them because they put user liberty first. That's something I've never seen anyone else do with a philosophy on software. Not even open source, a point the FSF makes very clear. Open Source is more of a development methodology where the FSF is more of a civil rights movement.

I think the ideas of the FSF are important. We are going deeper and deeper into a corporate owned digital world where everything is done by computers and privacy and the ideas of civil liberties for computer users have long become a thing of the past for most people. If anything, I'd argue the ideas of the FSF are more important now than ever; as I've seen more big companies abuse their users more now than ever.

Again, the only reason I've hung onto this 'grudge' for nine years is because I actually do like this game. It's a nice engine that is far superior to the second generations of worms. Though, I do still think it would do better with more weapons and utilities. But, it is cross platform, has zoom, has far more game play modes, and in general is much better optimized. So, I think the effort went into these things more and it really has paid off as the best game engine I've seen for this genre of gaming. This is also the best Free Software Game I've seen that was built from scratch. I guess I would put Minetest as second. Everything else is like the DOOM engine and stuff like that; which was licensed as Free Software later. What you all have made here is very impressive and I do look forward to the stable release of 1.0.0.

I wasn't perfect in how I handled myself back then. And I did feel offended and not welcomed. But, I think it's because the ideas were still so very new to me and I was so excited to see a game like worms 2 that was done so well and under the GNU GPL. So, when I didn't understand the situation clearly, combined with some of the comments I was receiving, I didn't deal with it well.

Also, I was just coming to Free Software Gaming from a proprietary gaming background. So, I was more used to 'corporate speak' professionalism. I was used to formal explanations. So, the responses I got were something of a cultural shell shock for me.

It's been a long time and I've recently been trying to play around with Free Software again. I finally got my new computer's BIOS updated so that it can boot what I want it to boot and installed Pure OS. So, that's what made me think to try to figure out what I could install to play on it and that made me think of Hedgewars again.

But every time I tried to play the game over these years, I would always think back to that fight from nine years ago. So, that's what made me think to get back on the forums and try to talk it out. Because I do like this game and I do want to feel good about playing it again. I want to feel good about recommending it to others.

I don't want to be petty. The fight was a very long time ago. I don't really know what else to say here. I do plan to give 1.0.0 a try once it comes out as stable. I've been playing with the old stable version a little bit. I tried to compile the beta from source, but I think I'm doing something wrong. I think I messed up the dependencies somehow. Lol.

Anyway, thank you all for responding. I feel better now.

Thank you for understanding my points and explaining your experience a bit more in detail. I'm glad to hear you feel better now.

I certainly agree that software business practices are getting increasingly worse (especially the whole "Live Services" and gambling mechanics).
It is important to make sure those cooperations follow the law to the letter (which is actually way too lenient and needs adjustments) and that surely takes priority over the legal details of little non-profit FOSS projects. (It's sadly not like they could lead by example either, because of their non-existing size and their non-profit nature being of no interest to shareholder feeding coorps)

With regards to building hedgewars: Feel free to post your compilation output/error, maybe we can help you with fixing it Preferably in the support section of the forums, so that your problem+solution will be easier to find for others.

PS: I only compiled the beta myself recently and had issues with the lua dependency (5.1-dev isn't part of modern repos anymore), so I used the bundled lua by providing -DSYSTEM_LUA=off in the cmake command line (then doing a clean build). Maybe you have a similar issue - in any case, feel free to let me know.

Another point I have as a question to Wuzzy on this issue is that I still don’t see where you see a clear distinction between something like the iphone/pad and steam.

Quite frankly, as much of a “stink” as I made about the iphone; I am actually a lot more lax on the idea of a steam release. So, I guess this is where Free Software advocates have a space to debate considering new things that get introduced to people.

There are actually quite a lot of Free Software projects on Steam; to be entirely honest. And, also, they tend to take the idea of being there for the same exact reason you defended being on Apple; which is visibility.

Godot is on Steam. Megaglest is on Steam. Alien Arena is on Steam. Space Station 14 plans to be on Steam. These same projects also allow you to download the software directly from them on their website and or code hosting service. So, as far as I’m concerned, as long as there is a place where users can go and download the Free Software and its source code directly that doesn’t require them to go through steam; then I honestly don’t see the problem is having the project also be ‘mirrored’ on steam as a way to generate profit to fund development of the project and increase project visibility.

If I’m going to play Devil’s advocate here; would you consider projects like Godot and Mega Glest unethical because they have a steam release?

This is where I, personally, still consider something like the iphone/pad release to be a bigger difficulty because it’s really not like an OS release at all; which is what you described it as. You made a false parallel. Rather, it’s a closed platform release. Releasing on iphone/pad is exactly the same as releasing on the nintnedo switch, ps4, or xbox one as far as I’m concerned.

All four of these platforms share these same problems.

1: Proprietary OS (Or at least proprietary user front end. From what I hear nintendo and ps4 are basically a ‘bsd system’ under the hood but with a propitiatory front end/gui. Similar to how a desktop mac OS is basically a unix clone itself that sits on top of X windowing system and many other Free Software projects and is locked behind a propitiatory gui. Same thing with something like a roku streaming box which sits on a linux kernel but with a proprietary gui. Same thing with a tivo)

2: They all require you to either buy from their digital store that they have a complete monopoly over, or in the case of consoles for now, physical releases that they also have a complete monopoly over through licensing.

3: Hardware that restricts the user from installing their own software independently; such as a Free Software Operating System and other Free Software Programs. At least not without jail breaking the device. Which comes with the risk of having the device banned from all online interactions; in the case of consoles.

So, the iphone as an entire ecosystem is a closed platform exactly like a game console.

Whereas the MAC desktop/laptop is different. When I was at school, at least, you could get a GNU + Linux system to boot on MAC hardware. You had to make sure you matched Intel CPU or Power PC; but it could be done. Even in the MAC OS, you can install your own programs; like Hedgewars for example. Apple doesn’t police installs in this way. (Though I do think I heard they floated the idea and got backlash for it.)

This is different than, say, Android. Wherein on Android the two core components of the OS are largely Free Software; the stripped down linux kernel and the Java user interface under MIT Expat. Granted, all the related freedoms rarely make their way down to actual customer phones. The MIT Expat license is very much a push over for not having copyleft and so most freedoms are stripped away from it by the time you buy a phone with one on it. You can’t even root into the thing or install your own OS because the phone is so locked down by the time you get it.

One of the key reasons I advocate a copyleft license. As you pointed it, it can cause problems with compatibility. But, it does prevent people from shoving it into a ‘consumer product’ and stripping the freedom from it. That’s exactly why the GPL V3 was created, in response to tivo doing this with their users. Which is why Linus refuses to switch to the GPL V3. He doesn’t really care about Free Software and user freedoms and just chose the license to make the kernel popular. If he actually enforced the license and moved to GPL V3 he or the companies would likely strip the linux kernel out of about every roku box and android phone imaginable. And it would be for the better.

I mean, what’s the point of a Free Software license if you’re going to support the freedoms being stripped away from them by the time the software reaches a ‘consumer project?’ It might as well be proprietary at that point. It’s the same damned difference in actual practice for the end user.

And this is key to where Richard and Linus diverge; as well as Free Software and Open Source. The entire point of the Free Software movement is that all users should have freedom with the software that they use.

Linus doesn’t care about that at all. He cares about community based development. So long as people running ‘real computers’ like desktops and laptops can share the code, have these freedoms, and work on the project together; then who the Hell cares if the end users in ‘consumer electronics’ live in digital jails? Not Linus, that’s for sure. Yet, more people compute on these ‘not real computers’ like roku, game consoles, and iphones/pads, and android phone/pads today than people who compute on ‘real computers’ like Desktops and Laptops.

Really, most people today are not intelligent enough to operate a desktop computer. The only real people who buy Desktop computers today, who are not buying them for business purposes, are gamers/tech enthusiasts. Or, in short, ‘nerds.’ ‘Regular people’ do their computing on an android or iphone or amazon pad computer. It’s because it’s a touch screen and they can wrap their simple minds around that a lot easier.

At least with android being Free Software at its core; people can try to gut the propitiatory stuff out; such as with Replicant. And even stock android “phones” (they should really be called pocket computers at this point) and pads and amazon pads allow users to install their own programs without going through the closed platform app store.

This is why I thought making an android version would be money and time and effort better spent. Why jump through hoops to develop for iphone; which is a completely closed platform from top to bottom, when you could instead be developing for Android which means at least there is a prayer of hope that if they ever get Replicant working on more devices it could run on Replicant and users could use ‘Hedgewars mobile’ in a completely Free Software OS. Also considering more people run stock android than iphone anyway, from a visibility and reaching a larger audience of users angle.

The iphone version, then, to me just amounted to completely wasted money and effort. The iphone will never be an open hardware platform. It will never be an open app store. And it will never let users install their own software outside of their closed app store without jail breaking the device; which is beyond the means of most users and most users wouldn’t want to take the risk of doing so anyway even if they could.

So, yes, even with the iphone version code being released as Free Software on its own (which is a good thing in and of itself) it has absolutely no hope of ever being useful in the ways Stallman intends all users to have freedom because the iphone/pad as a device is designed from the ground up to rob users of their freedom and put them in a jail cell from the hardware level to the app platform level, to the level of the OS. A small island of Free Software code in one program is completely useless on the device itself it’s intended for as the device itself is fundamentally Defective by Design. www.defectivebydesign.org

Why waste community funding dollars, effort, and time on that trash? It’s mismanagement, really. When an android port at least has some potential to be useful to people. I mean, Replicant itself does run on a few devices.

This is why I see no real problem at all if Hedgewars is on Steam as an option; while still being available on the web site and source repoe. But, I still to this day feel that the iphone/pad release was a completely idiotic and asinine move in almost every conceivable way. The only thing good about it is that you all did release the source code under a Free Software License. But, again, even that’s useless on the device itself because the device itself is defective by design. You might as well release Hedgewars on the switch next. It’s the same damned difference; note for note.

Your argument fallows entirely along a false parallel. Releasing on a propitiatory OS is not at all the same as releasing on a closed platform that is closed on all sides (hardware, app store, and OS.) It’s just a closed OS. A closed OS is bad. A closed release platform, like steam, is bad.

But, no one forces you to download steam. Now one forces you to download windows. But, on an iphone, the only way to avoid it’s trifecta of closed platform nature is to refuse to but the device entirely; just like a game console, because when you close down the os, the hardware, and the app store you have made the entire device defective by design. People should avoid buying one. People shouldn’t waste time, effort, and money developing for one.

At this point, what’s done is done. Hedgewars is on iphone. It releases its code as Free Software on the side. It’s good. I’m not saying it needs to be taken down. Again, DOOM still sales on Steam with its proprietary version for its engine while its source code was made Free Software a long time ago. I can live with the iphone release being done this way.

All I’m saying is that is was a giant waste of effort, time, and development dollars. As well as it makes no damned sense as to why steam is off the table for being a closed platform as an app store. Yet, completely paradoxically, iphone was acceptable being closed as an app store, an os, and closed hardware. Can you explain this to me Wuzzy? I don’t think you were the project lead back then. Let me ask you this. If you were, would you have championed an iphone/pad release? Or, would you have steered clear of it for the same you don’t want to do a Steam release?

Because, as far as I can tell, steam is one strike of closedness; where iphone/pad is three strikes. So how do you possible justify the iphone/pad version? Is not the fact that it’s a closed app store that’s proprietary in and of itself make it just as bad as steam? That fact alone does in my eyes.

Yet, again, I at least see steam as a ‘forgivable sin’ because savvy users can just go to the web site and or source code repository and download the game there completely bypassing steam entirely. Yet, the users of the iphone can’t really do that, can they? They can’t just download the code and compile and install it on their system without going through the proprietary app store and to get the binary or jail breaking the device to compile code on it.

Do you see my point?

I was never involved in any iPhone-related activity and it started long before I even joined the main developer team. To be honest, I don't even know who maintains it right now (if at all).

But I would probably not have been happy about it, back in the days. I agree that it's not a clever use of precious development time when that time could be used to improve (e.g.) the game itself.

I agree that iOS is orders of magnitudes worse than Steam. Steam is the lesser evil, if you will. But still evil nonetheless. :P

I don't really understand why you bring the copyleft yes-or-no debate into this. Hedgewars is GPL-ed, so …

Thinking about it, I'm kinda surprised why Apple hasn't banned Hedgewars a long time ago already, since they hate the GPL. Would not be the first time that FOSS is thrown out. Maybe Hedgewars just flew under the radar? Remember, Hedgewars is, ahem, not exactly popular. We don't really have an impact, I guess.

The question on whether its OK to make free software for non-free OSes is a difficult one.
The most extreme stance would be to only limit yourselves on libre OSes, so bye-bye, Windows release. This can be still legitimate, and when I start my complete own game project, that is, completely from scratch, it will probably be GNU/Linux-only, but simply because I just don't want to bother with the craziness that is WinAPI, or with macOS. I think there's nothing wrong with making a GNU/Linux-only release, but you're obviously also doing a sacrifice on your playerbase.

I don't think GNU/Linux-only (or libre-only) is realistic in the case of Hedgewars, many of our players are from Windows. That alone is not really an argument. I think supporting Windows and Mac although you're doing free software can be seen as purely for tactical reasons.
Many Windows/Mac users are simply not aware about what free software even is, so having free software for those OSes as well might be a chance to “get your foot into the door”, you know? As for me, back in my Windows days I also started learning about the concept of free software slowly via all those “freeware” applications (actually free software, as it turned out) that worked *also* on Windows: VLC, Claws-Mail, Pidgin, The GIMP, etc. but also a FEW games. Especially having these familiar tools on GNU/Linux, too, has helped me tremendously on my transition over to GNU/Linux. So I think support for non-free OSes CAN be benefitial for FOSS … in the long run. But I would not condemn a project for being deliberately for GNU/Linux or BSD only.

The other extreme would be to support even the most locked down OSes, namely, iOS. Yeah, I totally agree, it's really questionable whether it was a good idea to really go that extra mile only to support a locked down OS. I don't know how much additional development effort was required to actually do the iOS port, as I ignore this port anyway. If today a shiny new hyper-locked-down OS appears out of nowhere and every news outlet hypes it like there is no tomorrow and there's someone who wants to create a port for it, I would probably oppose it.

I'm not sure if it's a good idea to boot the Hedgewars port from the Apple AppStore today, but I would totally not oppose it if others decide to get rid of it. I wouldn't see it as a loss.

Finally, a clarification: I never took the project lead. I'm a member of the developer team. The “lead” still officially belongs to unC0Rr, without whom Hedgewars would not exist. Although there's not much activity around Hedgewars lately. It's finished.

Probably 1.0.0 is not the final version ever (I hope), as I have some nice ideas but I don't know when I will start with them. I'm bascially in my long Hedgewars pause right now. Only sometimes I look into forums, like today.