Sharkcheese

A black and white cat wearing a red bow tie, with an unimpressed expression.

Uni the Hutt?

BSD license, in case your unfamiliar, essentially being public domain rules but with the added restrictions of requiring attribution and disclaimer of liabilities. Those two things are allowed by GPL, but are also not required of it.

That isn't to say that there aren't drawbacks, GPL software can contain public domain code, but that specific code isn't protected by GPL's copyleft restrictions/freedoms. This isn't unusual, the Linux kernel is full of BSD licensed code and that works in essentially the same way.

"Public domain material is compatible with the GNU GPL.", a quote directly from the authors of the GPL, is about as clear cut as it can get. You're wrong. The people who told you otherwise are wrong. You should question what you are told, even when the answer may be inconvenient to your arguments.

www.gnu.org/licenses/lic...

Don't let your peer groups and the pressure they put on you to repeat bullshit talking points turn you into an idiot.

As long as the code works and is audited to be good quality, I don't really give a damn in an ethical sense. They're not creating art, they're building tools to shore up defences against a creeping corporate enshittification nightmare. If FOSS can use their tools to help fight that, so be it.

The actual IP-related risk with this stuff is code being output by the LLM that could later be found to be a copy of something from a codebase with an incompatible license. It's fairly difficult to test for this without access to the entire LLM dataset to compare generated code to.

The same way you can use public domain and MIT licensed code in GPL software.

Irony here is that this should be obvious if one has an understanding of open souce licensing and intellectual property law.

Well yeah, it's a style pastiche and parody of classic cartooning tropes, as is the game. It is derivative, like Weird Al's Fat

You can't hide behind "I didn't imply thing" and then proceed to talk precisely about that thing and proceed to make even more direct implications that they did the thing.

You've already been quoted the terms that describe the limited rights that you're actually given, then proceeded to ignore them.

Being stupid is one thing, everyone has gaps in their knowledge. Being willfully ignorant is a lot worse.

You can keep playing the game of course, no one will stop you, no one will care. But the same can be said for anything I download off the internet.

If Steam disappears one day, then I'll just download cracked copies from elsewhere, or the GOG installers. You aren't any more protected than I am.

No, you purchased a license. That license can be revoked, after which the data that sits on your NAS is technically infringing on the rightsholders copyright.

You keep using the word ownership, but it's bullshit. You don't legally own those games, you own a license that gives you limited legal access to those games. The "ownership" is of an emphemeral agreement.

GOG has the same language in it. Due to the lack of DRM, the games you buy from GOG are easier to copy, that is a practical benefit, a convenience.

But if Steam goes down, the games don't disappear. They're still on millions of peoples drives. DRM is an obstacle, but not an insurmountable one.

Read the license you bought.

All of your DRM free games run on my PC too.

I've had an 80TB Unraid setup for about as long.

GOG might give you a DRM-free copy, but in practice, everyone else gets those too. Steam games might have DRM, but in practice the majority of them end up cracked.

Support who you want, but don't delude yourself.

The realist point of view is that all software ownership is an illusion. licenses are flimsy constructs that only allow limited use and purchasing them isn't ever ownership, but instead is a way of giving money to services and companies you believe deserve it.

Once you dump the disc, you've stripped the DRM. Now you've tripped over DMCA, you've violated your license and your copy is legally little different from a cracked version.

One day you'll run out of drives to replace. Optical is a dying medium.

Those lasers diodes are dying a little more every time you use them and the mechanisms and chips inside are no longer being made, discs can bitrot. Tying your purchases to a piece of hardware and platform that is no longer manufactured means trusting that equipment won't break. Good luck.

And probably most Steam games relying on Valve's DRM too, since that's a wet paper bag.

The advantage here is the PC, the open platform, the ability to run any code you want, that's what makes games last. Not a digital license you bought from an eventually defunct store.

Unsure what I'm specifically wrong about, but it's true that GOG's business model means that a bunch of DRM free versions of games exist and that's great. I do buy games from them, if I know it works on Linux.

But even if I don't, if GOG goes away, I'll still have access to all of them too.

As for physical games like on console, do you really own a game if it's on an encrypted, uncopyable disc/cart that only runs when decrypted with a key that you don't have legal access to, on hardware that is sold by a single supplier and will eventually be obsoleted?

You buy a license from GOG too, the difference is entirely down to a mandatory lack of DRM. Which isn't a small difference, but should be noted that on Steam it's a choice the publisher makes. Even Half Life Alyx, a AAA Valve single player title, has a command line switch to run it without DRM.

Generally speaking, vertically integrated monopolies over software distribution are considered to be anti-competitive and most of the console markets are within scope of the european Digital Markets Act

Delisting sucks, but one of the better perks of PC is that I can play games from 20 years ago without needing to buy an encrypted plastic disc from some rando that thinks it's worth $100 using the magic of archive.org

I do think Valve has a chance at taking the place of Xbox, but that has no chance of happening until these parts shortages get sorted out... If ever.

It could happen if anti-trust in various jurisdictions actually did their job. If EU can break open Apple's grip (if only a little) then they could probably force the hand of Nintendo and Sony.

I think they might be glad they didn't, since there's no way that they'd have maintained that momentum given current hardware supply issues, Sony was too far ahead.

It's a shame to see the walls get built up and fortified again. Console ecosystems by all rights should be illegal.