Re: [directory-discuss] Fwd: Re: Congratulations for making Animal Farm game

[Elon satoshi]

On Fri, 04 Jan 2019 06:16:39 -0800
Quiliro Ordonez <address@hidden> wrote:

> I have written a letter to the developers of a would-be game based on
> the George Orwell book: Animal Farm. I pasted the original above all
> text so you can see the flow of mail. I have still to receive reply
> from my last email. Please suggest what I can add to my next email.
> 
> -------- Mensaje Original --------
> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2018 11:12:41 -0800
> From: Quiliro Ordonez <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> 
> Congratulations for making Animal Farm game.
> 
> It is a great idea to make a game with the ideas in George Orwell's
> Animal Farm. Teaching that authoritarianism is antagonist with
> socialism and the well being of the people is of paramount
> importance. It gives pride on people's autonomy and self criteria.
> 
> Vith this same train of thought, it would be great that this work is
> libre software. Libre software is such that gives rights to users in
> order to avoid digital authoritarianism. More information on the Free
> Software Foundation's web site:
> https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software .
> 
> Ĝis revido!
> Quiliro Ordóñez
> Freedom Activist
> 
> -------- Mensaje Original --------
> Asunto: Re: Congratulations for making Animal Farm game
> Fecha: 2019-01-04 09:11
> De: Quiliro Ordonez <address@hidden>
> Destinatario: Imre Jele <address@hidden>
> Responder a: address@hidden
> 
> El 2019-01-03 03:05, Imre Jele escribió:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Thanks for getting in touch and for your kind words.
> > 
> > The development of the Animal Farm game is a considerable creative,
> > visual art and programming undertaking as I am sure you understand.
> > Releasing it for free would require one of two things.
> > Firstly, we could find a team who'd be willing to work for free. And
> > honestly this is very unlikely considering the quality and
> > reliability of work this project needs and what Orwell's book
> > deserves. Secondly, we could finding a charitable financier to pay
> > the team without expecting any return. So far we have failed to
> > find such a source for the game's budget.
> > 
> > I am keen to hear if you have any practical solutions to this.
> > Also, I'd love to see some examples of free games of comparable
> > creative ambition and responsibility. So please share if you know of
> > any examples.  
> 
> Thank you for your email, Imre Jele.
> You do not have to make the software gratis. Distributing free
> software may be gratis or for a fee. Free software is not about cost
> but about freedom for the user.
> The business model is a separate topic. My suggestion for the business
> model are the same as is for all services. I am not suggesting to make
> the game an online game because this would turn it in practice worse
> than non-free software. These are my suggestions:
> - crowd-found the development
> - ask for donations after the release
> - charge for teaching how to contribute to development (many people
> would pay to learn how to develop games)
> - sell swag
> - sell tickets for animal farm competitions or other events
> - organize charity events for donations
> - charge for development of new functionality (release as free
> software when funded)
> - sell advertizement to be included on the software
> - etc
> I do not know what would be your take on these business models. So I
> would like to know what your interests are in order to help more. 
> You could also reduce costs of development by contracting cheaper
> developers of free software activists which would subsidize the work
> with their own money.
> I think it is an excellent opportunity to show people that they can
> avoid slavery of an authoritarian system by using example. Besides, I
> think that giving the software a freedom respecting license would
> raise more publicity than if it was non-free (as in freedom, not cost)
> license.
> I do not have any examples of games with a libre (free as in freedom)
> license. But I certainly know about enterprise grade, million-dollar
> software that is released as free software. Some have been funded by
> universities, others by the developers and others by users.
> Nevertheless, I think the libre software camp is a greater opportunity
> for games because there are very little good free software games. They
> are on high demand.
> On the other hand, it is possibly not very easy to have good graphics
> on a completely free software platform. But the software itself could
> easily have a free license. It is just a question of changing a few
> words and making the source code available. The important thing is to
> get a good marketing consultant in order to make the money flow.
> 
> Hope this helps and:
> Long live Animal Farm!
> 

I would recommend selling merchandise as a way to make money from
open source software! T-shirts, coffee mugs, phone wallets. This will
allow people to donate to the project and advertise it to their
friends, and get a cool gift. You can even sell stuff on Openbazaar, a
decentralized free software cryptocurrency marketplace.

In addition, would releasing a software as open source but temporarily
copyrighted, but at some later point GPL'd, be acceptable to the free
software movement?