| A strange article that focuses on a straw man instead of the core problem. > The understanding of intellectual property among gamers and the companies which serve them differs substantailly from that of free software, and literacy in the values and philosophy of free software among this community is very low. This is plainly false. Game devs are thoroughly aware of IP law, and the huge variety of licensing contracts and obligations. I mean, we have to be, otherwise we'd be having constant problems with software and business partners on one end, and with internet randos stealing and cloning our work for their own benefit the other hand. And OSS licenses are typically the least complicated ones - and the values of OSS are very well understood, and many game companies contribute what they can as well. So what's the real problem here? It's that a huge international video streaming conglomerate decided to intentionally violate software licensing conditions, in order to get a product to market faster. This was not an accident due to "lack of understanding". Maybe it was a case of "get it to market first, we'll swap out that component later"? Or maybe "go ahead and bundle it in, nobody will be able to sue us in our jurisdiction"?
Who knows. But throwing gamers and game developers under the bus, just because some games-adjacent megacorp is behaving badly, is a really weird look. |
oohhhh not sure about that - games are a team sport, even for "loner" game devs. The strange bedfellows of publishers, engine/tooling makers, and wild-eyed coders and artists is not new.. the personal actions of game developers, let no one tarnish their intelligence! cheats on FOSS license, you bet it happens IMHO