Parallel Realities Games have non-free content

[Tom Callaway]

Recently, it has come to light that all Parallel Realities games were knowingly 
using and including non-free content (graphics, audio, etc).

See: http://www.happypenguin.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4725&highlight=

Accordingly, we need to block these packages from Fedora:

blobwars
blobAndConquer
starfighter
viruskiller

Thanks,

~spot

[Hans de Goede]

Tom spot Callaway wrote:
> Recently, it has come to light that all Parallel Realities games were knowingly 
> using and including non-free content (graphics, audio, etc).
>
> See: http://www.happypenguin.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4725&highlight=
>
> Accordingly, we need to block these packages from Fedora:
>
> blobwars
> blobAndConquer
> starfighter
> viruskiller

Agreed, rel-eng people can you please untag these from rawhide (too late for 
older releases). I know were having infra issues, so please untag once those 
are solved.

Regards,

Hans

[Hans de Goede]

Tom spot Callaway wrote:
> Recently, it has come to light that all Parallel Realities games were knowingly 
> using and including non-free content (graphics, audio, etc).
>
> See: http://www.happypenguin.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4725&highlight=
>
> Accordingly, we need to block these packages from Fedora:
>
> blobwars
> blobAndConquer
> starfighter
> viruskiller

I'm currently trying to get a better picture on the issues surrounding these 
games from upstream and I'll try to work with them to fix things.

Regards,

Hans

[Hans de Goede]

Tom spot Callaway wrote:
> Recently, it has come to light that all Parallel Realities games were knowingly 
> using and including non-free content (graphics, audio, etc).
>
> See: http://www.happypenguin.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4725&highlight=
>
> Accordingly, we need to block these packages from Fedora:
>
> blobwars
> blobAndConquer
> starfighter
> viruskiller

Ok I've been in contact with upstream about this and I got the following 
list from them of resources which they got from various places and they 
thus cannot give any license guarantees about:

For Blob Wars,

All Music
All Sound Effects

For Blob And Conquer

All Music
All Sound Effects

For Virus Killer

All Music
All Sound Effects

For Project: Starfighter
All Music
All Sound Effects
Character Portraits
Starfighter (and other spacecraft) images

My plan is to issue updates for blobwars and blobAndConquer removing 
music and sounds (and patching source as necessary to not crash when 
these are missing).

Then I'll be replacing the music which is all mod / xm / s3m with 
modtracker files from modarchive.org which only contains freely 
(re)distributable modtracker files (license already approved by Spot).

Last I will be replacing the sound effects with sound effects from other 
free games in Fedora, mainly freedoom, nexuiz, tremulous, opearena and 
worminator.

I'll do the same for viruskiller as that one is from Matthias, and 
Matthias seems to have little time for Fedora lately.

Project starfighter will have to be removed until we can fix the 
graphics issue, I've contacted Nicu and Marin asking them if they can 
maybe do some replacement graphics for starfighter.

Regards,

Hans

p.s.

As I still have quite a bit webcam work todo before the F10 beta for now 
I'll only be removing the sounds / music, adding replacements is 
something which I will do in a later update. In the mean time any help 
with this would be much appreciated, if you want to help please drop me 
a mail to coordinate.

[Rafał Psota]

2008/8/18 Hans de Goede
> My plan is to issue updates for blobwars and blobAndConquer removing music
> and sounds (and patching source as necessary to not crash when these are
> missing).

I'm the current maintainer of blobwars, so I'll try to remove music and
souds and eventually patch the source unless it requires advanced
programming skills. I'll let you know about any progress.

Regards,

Rafał

[Hans de Goede]

Rafał Psota wrote:
> 2008/8/18 Hans de Goede <[e-mail] >
> My plan is to issue updates for blobwars and blobAndConquer removing
> music and sounds (and patching source as necessary to not crash when
> these are missing).
>
>
> I'm the current maintainer of blobwars, so I'll try to remove music and 
> souds and eventually patch the source unless it requires advanced 
> programming skills. I'll let you know about any progress.

Cool, thanks!

As said I've some ideas to replace the music and sounds, when you have some 
spare time to invest drop me a mail and I'll put my ideas on paper, hopefully 
we can get some free music and sounds as replacements in place then, as a 
silent blobwars would be a bit of a pitty.

Regards,

Hans

(no subject)

[Chris Norman]

Hi all,

I don't know if this is the right place to do this, but I would like to
offer my help to the gaming comunity.

I am not personally a gamer, and I am visually impared, so I cannot test
the greater number of games, what I can do is create music, and I would
like to offer to help create music for any game that wants it.

If my help is required, just email me on this address
([e-mail]), with a description of the game, and what
musical piece(s) you want, and I'll see what I can put together, and
produce the music in either mp3 or wav format.

HTH somebody.

(no subject)

[Jon Ciesla]

> Hi all,
>
> I don't know if this is the right place to do this, but I would like to
> offer my help to the gaming comunity.
>
> I am not personally a gamer, and I am visually impared, so I cannot test
> the greater number of games, what I can do is create music, and I would
> like to offer to help create music for any game that wants it.
>
> If my help is required, just email me on this address
> ([e-mail]), with a description of the game, and what
> musical piece(s) you want, and I'll see what I can put together, and
> produce the music in either mp3 or wav format.

Sounds like you would be a good person for Hans de Goede to work with.  We
just had to remove or modify several games with non-free content,
including music, and I bet Hans would jump at the chance to have something
custom-created.

Hans?
> HTH somebody.
>
> Fedora-games-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-games-list

Music for games

[Chris Norman]

On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 07:13 -0500, Jon Ciesla wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I don't know if this is the right place to do this, but I would like to
> > offer my help to the gaming comunity.
> >
> > I am not personally a gamer, and I am visually impared, so I cannot test
> > the greater number of games, what I can do is create music, and I would
> > like to offer to help create music for any game that wants it.
> >
> > If my help is required, just email me on this address
> > ([e-mail]), with a description of the game, and what
> > musical piece(s) you want, and I'll see what I can put together, and
> > produce the music in either mp3 or wav format.
>
> Sounds like you would be a good person for Hans de Goede to work with.  We
> just had to remove or modify several games with non-free content,
> including music, and I bet Hans would jump at the chance to have something
> custom-created.
>
> Hans?

It was this thread that gave me the idea to be honest.

I have a fair bit of free time on my hands to be honest, so just give me
a shout if anyone wants music doing for anything, and obviously it's not
going to be under any copyright or anything, all I ask is that my name
be mentioned somewhere in the credits.
> > HTH somebody.
> >
> > Fedora-games-list mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-games-list

Music for games

[Chris Norman]

I can do sound effects as well, and any other audio, voice clips with
different people, whatever.

HTH.

On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 13:24 +0100, Chris Norman wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 07:13 -0500, Jon Ciesla wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I don't know if this is the right place to do this, but I would like to
> > > offer my help to the gaming comunity.
> > >
> > > I am not personally a gamer, and I am visually impared, so I cannot test
> > > the greater number of games, what I can do is create music, and I would
> > > like to offer to help create music for any game that wants it.
> > >
> > > If my help is required, just email me on this address
> > > ([e-mail]), with a description of the game, and what
> > > musical piece(s) you want, and I'll see what I can put together, and
> > > produce the music in either mp3 or wav format.
> >
> > Sounds like you would be a good person for Hans de Goede to work with.  We
> > just had to remove or modify several games with non-free content,
> > including music, and I bet Hans would jump at the chance to have something
> > custom-created.
> >
> > Hans?
>
> It was this thread that gave me the idea to be honest.
>
> I have a fair bit of free time on my hands to be honest, so just give me
> a shout if anyone wants music doing for anything, and obviously it's not
> going to be under any copyright or anything, all I ask is that my name
> be mentioned somewhere in the credits.
> > > HTH somebody.
> > >
> > > Fedora-games-list mailing list
> > > [e-mail]
> > > http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-games-list

Music for games

[Nicu Buculei]

Chris Norman wrote:
> It was this thread that gave me the idea to be honest.
>
> I have a fair bit of free time on my hands to be honest, so just give me
> a shout if anyone wants music doing for anything, and obviously it's not
> going to be under any copyright or anything, all I ask is that my name
> be mentioned somewhere in the credits.

I am not a licensing guru or something, but I believe Creative Commons 
Attribution (alo Share Alike if you want) are fine choices: 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#Good_Licenses_3

Also you mentioned earlier mp3, which is NOT an acceptable format, the 
content should be available in a Free format (wav, ogg theora, flac - 
that is, for games that not use synthethised music).
> I can do sound effects as well, and any other audio, voice clips with
> different people, whatever.

Just a thought (unrelated to the Games list): how about a sound theme 
for the Fedora desktop, to go along with the graphic theme in 
personalizing the Fedora experience?

Music for games

[Chris Norman]

On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 15:50 +0300, Nicu Buculei wrote:
> Chris Norman wrote:
> > It was this thread that gave me the idea to be honest.
> >
> > I have a fair bit of free time on my hands to be honest, so just give me
> > a shout if anyone wants music doing for anything, and obviously it's not
> > going to be under any copyright or anything, all I ask is that my name
> > be mentioned somewhere in the credits.
>
> I am not a licensing guru or something, but I believe Creative Commons 
> Attribution (alo Share Alike if you want) are fine choices: 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#Good_Licenses_3

I don't know anything about all that stuff, I'll just make a wave file
(as per your idea below), and give it to the fedora comunity, and let
them do whatever they want with it, providing my name is in the credits
for the game.
> Also you mentioned earlier mp3, which is NOT an acceptable format, the 
> content should be available in a Free format (wav, ogg theora, flac - 
> that is, for games that not use synthethised music).
> > I can do sound effects as well, and any other audio, voice clips with
> > different people, whatever.
>
> Just a thought (unrelated to the Games list): how about a sound theme 
> for the Fedora desktop, to go along with the graphic theme in 
> personalizing the Fedora experience?

What do you mean??? Sounds interesting.
>

Music for games

[Nicu Buculei]

Chris Norman wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 15:50 +0300, Nicu Buculei wrote:
> > Just a thought (unrelated to the Games list): how about a sound theme 
> > for the Fedora desktop, to go along with the graphic theme in 
> > personalizing the Fedora experience?
>
> What do you mean??? Sounds interesting.

A full set of sound events to accompany the various events happening on 
the desktop (login, logout, application start/close, error message, etc.)

See here: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/sixfold-announcement.html - 
the part about "The freedesktop Sound Theme".

If you are interested in this I invite you to the fedora-art-list where 
you may find other people interested on helping with it.

Music for games

[Hans de Goede]

Chris Norman wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-08-19 at 07:13 -0500, Jon Ciesla wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > I don't know if this is the right place to do this, but I would like to
> > > offer my help to the gaming comunity.
> > > I am not personally a gamer, and I am visually impared, so I cannot test
> > > the greater number of games, what I can do is create music, and I would
> > > like to offer to help create music for any game that wants it.
> > >
> > > If my help is required, just email me on this address
> > > ([e-mail]), with a description of the game, and what
> > > musical piece(s) you want, and I'll see what I can put together, and
> > > produce the music in either mp3 or wav format.
> >
> > Sounds like you would be a good person for Hans de Goede to work with.  We
> > just had to remove or modify several games with non-free content,
> > including music, and I bet Hans would jump at the chance to have something
> > custom-created.
> >
> > Hans?
>
> It was this thread that gave me the idea to be honest.
>
> I have a fair bit of free time on my hands to be honest, so just give me
> a shout if anyone wants music doing for anything, and obviously it's not
> going to be under any copyright or anything, all I ask is that my name
> be mentioned somewhere in the credits.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the offer! ATM the trouble some games from Parallel Realities use 
modtracker format music. The blobwars maintainer is currently looking into 
replacing it with similar sounding modules from modarchive.org, which carries 
modules which match Fedora demands with regards to Free-ness for music, but is 
not truely Free music (no modification permitted).

It would be nice to have really free music for blobwars (and others, but lets 
start with blobwars) esp so that it can be used by distributions with stricter 
licensing demands for music like Debian.

If you download the blobwars sources from their website you will find a music 
directory there with various music files. We are basicly looking for music with 
the same feel. Also I don't know if you can do this, but it would be great if 
you could create modtracker music for blobwars again, as that has a certain 
feel (a certain cheesiness) and is very small.

If you cannot do modtracker music we need to think thisn over a bit, as 
currently blobwars is only 8 MB, adding .ogg (mp3 level compression) music 
files to that is a huge size increase.

Regards,

Hans

Music for games

[Miriam Ruiz]

2008/8/27 Hans de Goede :
> Hi Chris,
>
> Thanks for the offer! ATM the trouble some games from Parallel Realities use
> modtracker format music. The blobwars maintainer is currently looking into
> replacing it with similar sounding modules from modarchive.org, which
> carries modules which match Fedora demands with regards to Free-ness for
> music, but is not truely Free music (no modification permitted).
>
> It would be nice to have really free music for blobwars (and others, but
> lets start with blobwars) esp so that it can be used by distributions with
> stricter licensing demands for music like Debian.
>
> If you download the blobwars sources from their website you will find a
> music directory there with various music files. We are basicly looking for
> music with the same feel. Also I don't know if you can do this, but it would
> be great if you could create modtracker music for blobwars again, as that
> has a certain feel (a certain cheesiness) and is very small.
>
> If you cannot do modtracker music we need to think thisn over a bit, as
> currently blobwars is only 8 MB, adding .ogg (mp3 level compression) music
> files to that is a huge size increase.

Hi Hans and Chris,

The Debian Games Team is following your steps in this, and fully
supports your efforts. If you need or want any help from us at any
point, just ask. We'd be very glad to do as much as we can.

Greetings,
Miry

Music for games

[Chris Norman]

On Wed, 2008-08-27 at 11:21 +0200, Miriam Ruiz wrote:
> Hi Hans and Chris,
>
> The Debian Games Team is following your steps in this, and fully
> supports your efforts. If you need or want any help from us at any
> point, just ask. We'd be very glad to do as much as we can.

Unfortunately, my firewire mixer that I usually use has just gone back
to Maudio for repare, so I will not be music making for about a week at
the least, but it will be a top priority job when I get it back. In the
mean time, if someone could tell me where to get the blobwars sources,
then I can get my ideas roling.

I don't know what mod tracker music is, and I can only do music in wave
or mp3 format, I will need to give it someone else for conversion.

HTH.
> Greetings,
> Miry
>
> Fedora-games-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-games-list

Music for games

[Hans de Goede]

Chris Norman wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-08-27 at 11:21 +0200, Miriam Ruiz wrote:
> > Hi Hans and Chris,
> >
> > The Debian Games Team is following your steps in this, and fully
> > supports your efforts. If you need or want any help from us at any
> > point, just ask. We'd be very glad to do as much as we can.
>
> Unfortunately, my firewire mixer that I usually use has just gone back
> to Maudio for repare, so I will not be music making for about a week at
> the least, but it will be a top priority job when I get it back. In the
> mean time, if someone could tell me where to get the blobwars sources,
> then I can get my ideas roling.

You can find the blobwars source here:
http://www.parallelrealities.co.uk/download.php?proj=blobwars&file=blobw...
> I don't know what mod tracker music is, and I can only do music in wave
> or mp3 format, I will need to give it someone else for conversion.

modtracker music uses samples, together with information when to play which 
simple at which pitch (and volume) to create music, it was very popular in the 
amiga days, and on gravis ultrasound cards.

Regards,

Hans

Music for games

[Jason L Tibbitts III]

> > > > > "HdG" == Hans de Goede  writes:

HdG> Thanks for the offer! ATM the trouble some games from Parallel
HdG> Realities use modtracker format music.

I also wanted to point out that The FreeDink project is looking for
sound and music.  The code was freed a while back and but the sounds
and music could not be.  A reference:
  http://www.dinknetwork.com/forum.cgi?MID=94985&Posts=14
and the lost of needed sounds and music:
  http://www.freedink.org/doc/sounds/

Someone recently submitted FreeDink to Fedora in three packages; I
haven't had much time to take a look.  Those review tickets are:
  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=459908
  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=459915
  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=459916
I believe the game simply plays without most of its sounds.

- J<

[Steve Cotton]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 09:13:19AM +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
> Last I will be replacing the sound effects with sound effects from other  
> free games in Fedora, mainly freedoom, nexuiz, tremulous, opearena and  
> worminator.

The sound effects of Tremulous are also in question:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=466327

Steve