[opan]

The title says "open source" but then goes on to talk about leaked source. Unless a clean room RE was done, I don't think this can be called "open source". I want the thing in the title to exist, of course, but at best this seems like the sort of thing that won't be legal and free until we're all dead.

If anyone was interested in making a properly free CS:GO, they probably should avoid reading this post as it seems to show the leaked source.

[dizhn]

This person is really confused about licenses and copyright.

> Please note that this code is property of Valve-Software and any contributions that you make are considered a donation into the public domain.

[ethanbond]

Legitimately seems like a GPT-tier confusion. Just put all the somewhat-relevant words in a syntactically correct configuration and call it done.

[DizzyDoo]

Heh, it's like all those YouTube videos where someone uploads a song and the uploader puts "No copyright infringement intended" in the text description, sometimes with five or six exclamation marks just to really make sure they avoid the takedown.

[plorkyeran]

Often they drop the "infringement" and just have "no copyright intended" because they don't actually know what copyright is beyond it being a word in the emails they get from youtube.

[paulddraper]

"Credit to X"

[awestroke]

What are you talking about? GPT4 would not do that kind of mistake. I must say, reading comments like this, that GPT4 actually comes across as more intelligent than many hn commenters

[BasedAnon]

This is a common 'copyright infringement NOT intended ALL rights belong to X' type of widespread misunderstanding of how copyright actually works, and it's why I'm convinced that if most people understood copyright they would think it was absurd.

[PrimeMcFly]

The sheer amount of YouTube videos where people put that as a disclaimer so think it's fine is kind of shocking.

[Spivak]

Well to be fair YT has made it confusing because some of the time it is. Some artists allow fan uploads like that and just collect the ad revenue off it.

So really in the modern era no copyright intended really is a message to the artist/label saying it's a fan video, they're not trying to impersonate the official one and asking for it to stay. The uploader might not know that that's what they're really asking but credit to YT for making this arrangement work to preserve some of the site's original culture.

[PrimeMcFly]

The message means nothing though and is based on a poor understanding of how copyright works.

If it's allowed the message is irrelevant, and i it's not allow it's also irrelevant as it will be ignored and the video removed.

[dmonitor]

young people gonna do

[arboles]

Unlike other commenters, I think the author of the article meant to say you can't hope to license contributions built ontop leaked code, obviously, so it'll always be a gray area that one could call "public domain".

[kadoban]

One could call it pea soup and it'd be approximately as correct.

[arboles]

He's a hacker, not a laywer.

[kadoban]

Anyone vaguely near software development really should have a working understanding of copyright though.

[orra]

General point: Clean room reverse engineering is a common approach, from corporations keen to minimise their liability.

Nonetheless, clean room RE is not a legal requirement: certainly not in the EU, nor AIUI in the US.

The EU allows reverse engineering for interoperability. The EU allows reimplementations of APIs (as does the US). The EU also explicitly allows decompilation, where necessary.

[seba_dos1]

That's true, but it doesn't change your parent's point - this cannot be called "open source" at all.

[dgellow]

Wait, there are EU regulations on this topic? I understood there wasn’t a common framework, and instead each countries in the EU have their own approach.

Edit: I was wrong, I found the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Programs_Directive

> (Art. 5). The legal owner of a program is assumed to have a licence to create any copies necessary to use the program and to alter the program within its intended purpose (e.g. for error correction). The legal owner may also make a back-up copy for his or her personal use. The program may also be decompiled if this is necessary to ensure it operates with another program or device (Art. 6), but the results of the decompilation may not be used for any other purpose without infringing the copyright in the program.

[orra]

It's actually really old, in that this bit goes back to the 1991 Directive, not just the replacement 2009 Directive.

[scott_w]

In a general sense, yes. However, I really don’t see how this would fall into that category. It looks like someone has a copy illegitimately and is trying to reimplement it.

[orra]

Yes. AIUI, it's the illegitimate copy that's the problem, not so much the decompilation approach.

[ramshanker]

That will be helpful with my open source projects. Thanks.

[fullspectrumdev]

For a lot of people, “the source code being available” is what “open source” means.

Licences, to many people, are the domain of really fucking boring crusty nerds.

[packetlost]

Then a lot of people are objectively wrong. The license is an incredibly important and central part of what makes code open source or not. What you're describing is "source available". Failure to pay attention to the licensing can end you up in very big and expensive legal trouble. I strongly encourage you to update your terminology for you and anyone you communicate with's own safety.

[fullspectrumdev]

Again: most people I know don’t care. Many used to. Hell, I used to.

If they use a licence, they just throw WTFPL on it and call it a day like me.

What’s the worst risk? Someone in America sues me? Big deal.

[SgtBastard]

Valve has two EU-based subsidiaries who can sue you on the parents behalf.

[hparadiz]

The license isn't enforcable everywhere the same way. Typically a license is in a project but not always. It's kind of on you to figure that out.

[jaimehrubiks]

I got the same impression, is he suggesting that the code itself is open source, or did he rewrite everything (not only the binaries he mentioned)

[RektBoy]

what the fk cares about copyright, this is coming from community of game hackers. They don't care.

[dgellow]

Anyone who cares about open source by definition cares about copyright. That’s what the concepts of free software and open source software are built upon.

[ogurechny]

Wow.

Free software movement abuses the copyright system to prevent anyone from “owning” the software and putting a fence around others' work when greed tells it's suitable to do so. It has no intention to support its existence. As people only have that mediocre system today, and believe in it, it is used as a tool to partially formalize something from a different sphere of values.

[dgellow]

I think you misread my comment, at no point did I express that free software intents to support the existence of copyright. But free software and open source are obviously built on top of the copyright system, as you said (they are a kind of hack). So you obviously care about copyright frameworks and their various implementations if you care about open source/free software.

[ogurechny]

One can totally care about an illness, but not CARE about it much.

[geon]

Are you thinking of the GPL? There are other open source licenses.

[arboles]

I will continue to release my code without a license, glad that it makes corporations and their drones seethe.

[dgellow]

That just means you have full and complete ownership, so you’re sharing non-open source, non-free software code, also known as proprietary code. That has literally no impact on corporations or their drones, whatever that means.

[93po]

> That has literally no impact on corporations or their drones, whatever that means.

It does if they want to use his code for anything. The parent commenter is also clearly making the point that his efforts are to be used by people who share the same sentiment of "fuck copyright". Which I think is a noble perspective, since IP laws in the US are much more bad than good.

[dgellow]

They are releasing proprietary software, that’s the default state, not an act of rebellion against copyright systems. Free software is by itself a middle finger to copyright. Releasing code without license isn’t.

[EamonnMR]

AssaultCube was a pretty good foss CS clone, no idea if people still play it though.

[rasz]

Urban Assault, Tactical Ops, there were a few back in the day.

[ogurechny]

Intellectual property is a convention. Saying that nothing exists outside of that convention is like saying that someone without official papers does not exist (which is, unfortunately, not an odd occasional curiosity, but a hidden assumption permeating everyone's lives).

This is an open source code. It is not compatible with widespread economical system, but it is not any less open.

[geon]

The source being available illegally has nothing to do with open source.

Open source is by definition legal to modify and spread. There is a number of open source compatible licenses.

Leaked source is just that. Leaked.

[antris]

Well that's the difference between "open source" and "free software", no? "Open source", meaning that anyone can see/copy the source code, and "free software" meaning code that is licensed accordingly.

I always thought that "open source" has nothing to do with what's legal and what isn't, it just means that anyone can materially access the code.

[wyldfire]

No. Both of these terms are well described by the relevant organizations [1][2]. And "source the happens to be public" or "leaked source" does not imply any particular license.

[1] https://opensource.org/

[2] https://www.fsf.org/

[antris]

I mean, you're not saying that this project is "closed source" either, right?

So what is it if not "open source" on the scale between closed and open? "Half-open source"? "Leaked source" only refers to the way the source has initially began to be distributed, not whether it's open/closed right now.

[mrob]

The middle ground is "source available", although that usually means source made available by the copyright holder under terms that don't meet the Open Source/Free Software definitions. I think just "leaked source" is the best terminology here.

[ZoomZoomZoom]

Source Available is the worst of both, unless there's a way to reproducibly build the source and check the results against the shipped product. False sense of security and no legal ways to use the code.

[antris]

Ah, found it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software

I see, never heard of that term. Still wish there was a term that encompassed all software that has publically available source code. I thought "open source" was it. The literal meaning of the term aligns so beautifully with it.

[dgellow]

It’s more like someone illegally distributing a closed source program.

[paulddraper]

"Leaked source"

Like, you wouldn't call a pirated movie "free". I mean, it is, but only by violating copyright law.

[antris]

Of course I would call a pirated movie free, because that's what it is.

Free isn't a synonym for good or legal.

[grodriguez100]

“Free” is related to the concept of property, which is a legal concept.

If something is “free” that means that you can get it legally without paying.

If something is only “free” by circumventing law, then that’s theft.

[paulddraper]

Anything at the store is free too, you just have to avoid paying.

[geon]

This is definitely closed source. It is also leaked.

[version_five]

I feel like there is a consensus that open source is defined as you say. But there seems to be a vocal group, that I suspect are mostly just being pedantic about the literal definition of the two words separately that seem to keep coming up with alternate definitions. There was a long discussion about it on here the other day with tons of people "confusing" the availability of source code with open source.

[amelius]

Anyone can start an organisation and define "open source" the way they want.

The common way it is understood should probably be named "libre source" or something, because it means more than that the source is just out in the open.

[seba_dos1]

Sure anyone can, but OSI is the organization that popularized the term in the first place and its definition is widely followed, so there's no need to make such point in this particular case.

[scott_w]

That’s no different to saying “You can define black as white.” That’s true but nobody is going to pay attention to you if you do.

[amelius]

The analogy falls flat because the words that make "open source" both already have meanings that make the OSI definition confusing to say the least.

[scott_w]

That’s not how human languages work at all. A term picks up common or agreed use. When you try to push against that, you see the exact reaction you’re observing here.

[asddubs]

no, that would be something like "source available" or "source visible". both open source and free software imply specific licenses, though they are not synonymous