Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Adding some scummvm game(s) to the "List of software that does not respect the Free System Distribution Guidelines".

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Thu, 08 Jun 2023 19:02:16 -0400
Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>   > "It creates a runtime environment equivalent to the one that was
>   > used on those proprietary games, but you can use your creativity
>   > to program other games to run on that same kind of environment.
>   > The technical aspects of such runtime may lead to an interesting
>   > creative-coding challenge in which one can experience the quirks
>   > and limitations of the platform in which those games were
>   > originally developed. To some extent, it also has historical
>   > value, as it helps one to better grasp how game development
>   > worked in that era."
> 
> Those reasons are not a strong argument for including anything in a
> distro. The people who want to use it for those purposes can get it
> from someone else.
Talking about that issue in generic ways would make things easier.

Here we have a virtual machine / runtime environment (ScummVM), and
we're unsure if there is 100% free software programs that can run in it.

So I don't see the issue of shipping that Virtual machine / runtime
environment if we make sure that we have at least one 100% free software
program that can run in it. And  I don't see why we necessarily need a
game or full featured program. A hello word built with 100% free
software in an FSDG compliant distribution could be enough assuming
that the package description does not to steer users toward nonfree
software.

If this discussion takes too long, a way out could be to make that
hello world program not to have to review countless games (at least one
is under a public domain license) and to do that we could:
- Have someone try to compile a free software IDE[1][2] for 'AGI'
  (a game engine in ScummVM) in PureOS byzantium (because it still has
  QT4 and the free AGI IDE requires that).
- Find or build a hello world under a free license, and try to see if
  that hello world works in ScummVM. There are some templates for AGI
  but I'm unsure if their strange license qualify as free.
- Document all the steps somewhere, and point users to that
  documentation somehow. 

This solution has maintenance issues (QT4 is not shipped anymore by
many distributions), so finding a more miminal way to create a program
for ScummVM (like with command line tools that are easier to maintain)
could probably work too.

And the other issue here is that as I understand we didn't come up with
a definitive answer on the games I mentioned at first.

If their license is nonfree we can safely add them to the list of
software to be removed and we could then rule out all the games with
similar licenses.

If their license is free, someone needs to look if there is the source
code we need inside the game file (they are game specific archives that
can be extracted with scummvm-tools) and also if there is also useless
code without source code in that archive that can simply be removed and
not redistributed (like the original nonfree game engine).

References:
-----------
[1]http://agiwiki.sierrahelp.com/index.php?title=QT_AGI_Studio
[2]https://git.cromer.cl/cromer/qt-agistudio/releases

Denis.

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