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[Micro102]

If toady is so worried about his code that he doesn't release the raws, can't he copyright something so noone can duplicate it?

[bombcar]

If toady is so worried about his code that he doesn't release the raws, can't he copyright something so noone can duplicate it?

He's not worried about releasing the raws, but I assume you mean source code. Since he lives on DF, he wants to make sure that he's the prime mover of all that is used. Copyright alone wouldn't prevent forking, and at this time it would be more hassle than it's worth.

[Eagleon]

Right. He'd still have to go after people that started making major modifications edging on new games, and then what would be the point? People could learn from it, yes, but Toady has always been willing to answer questions about how he does things anyway AFAIK.

[Nadaka]

If toady is so worried about his code that he doesn't release the raws, can't he copyright something so noone can duplicate it?

Toady lives in the USA, the code will be covered under copyright the instant he publishes it. However, it is the responsibility of the copyright holder to pursue infringement in a civil court at his own expense. It doesn't matter if you are right or wrong, fighting a copyright battle will very expensive. He earns a meager living developing the game, and could neither afford the lawsuit nor the potential loss of income from cloned competitors.

[Danarca]

Duplicating dwarf fortress?
Good luck, the game is made by pure will and a decade(s ?) of trial-and-error.

[Micro102]

counter-sue for money?

[Danarca]

To be honest I would be squealing with glee and rolling up my stairs if more developers paid just a quarter as much to detail as Toady does.

[G-Flex]

counter-sue for money?

It's not easy or necessarily even feasible to do this, and you can't assume anybody who would modify the DF source code even lives in the United States.

You might also get weird quasi-legal situations where someone, instead of distributing the modified source code, simply distributes the modifications themselves, but I'm not sure about that (akin to distributing a patch for an old game ROM, but not the modified ROM itself).


Also, if he doesn't want people modifying or distributing it, why would he release it?

[eerr]

counter-sue for money?

It's not easy or necessarily even feasible to do this, and you can't assume anybody who would modify the DF source code even lives in the United States.

You might also get weird quasi-legal situations where someone, instead of distributing the modified source code, simply distributes the modifications themselves, but I'm not sure about that (akin to distributing a patch for an old game ROM, but not the modified ROM itself).


Also, if he doesn't want people modifying or distributing it, why would he release it?

If he doesn't mind. But he does mind.

[Asehujiko]

The extortion fees that need to be paid to the corporatized copyright system are much higher then the potential loss of income caused by somebody stealing the code.

[zwei]

You can release source code under license.

Creative Commons license can, for example, have clause that forbids adaptations and derivations (forks). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/

"You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work."

Which is pretty much what Creator wants. CC folks are quite fond of helping people defend licensed works and getting cases to court.

---

Problem is, internet is full of idiots that would ignore this and just fork.

Anyone who was arround during "(improved) guidebook" incudent in adom community should know better: random assohle with come, take work and fork it. Regardless of authors wishes, and ignoring majority of community which does not like it either.

[Micro102]

Any benefits (benifits?) to releasing the source code under license?

[Nadaka]

Any benefits (benifits?) to releasing the source code under license?

There are possible benefits. It would make it easier for toady to get help with his project and move towards completion faster. There are however costs, risk of loss of control, dilution of his goals and distraction by project management. At the moment, the costs are higher than the gains as far as toady is concerned.

[zwei]

Any benefits (benifits?) to releasing the source code under license?

There are possible benefits. It would make it easier for toady to get help with his project and move towards completion faster. There are however costs, risk of loss of control, dilution of his goals and distraction by project management. At the moment, the costs are higher than the gains as far as toady is concerned.

Aggresive license enforcement should help with loss of control, lawyery opensource folks are eager to help to prove license is valid at court (each won case strengtens it and it can be won trivialy even against giants like microsoft).

But it is not feasible to do it consisntenly: Random "forking asshole" on internet which can be from pretty much anywhere and good luck trying to sure some random teenage jerk from russia that released his df mod (and then kid in china who mirrors it and takes over). And even if all cases can be pursued and won, it is going to cost dev time.

And yes, releasing source code invites lots of overhead even if people play along and noone steals game: People are bound to try to submit their patches and steal dev time. Cue in forum drama as someone posts patch that took 100s of hours and it got rejected for not fitting into game or because it is just way too much work to review it.

[G-Flex]

It would also probably suffer from a lot of short-term-thinking in terms of development. Toady knows what he's going to need the game to be capable of three years from now, in terms that might not be easily explained to other people.


Really, Toady's made it clear before that he simply doesn't like working with other people when it comes to this stuff. He's handed off the graphics code for other people to work on, and I don't see why it would be impossible for that to happen with something else (like pathfinding), but I never see the game itself becoming open-source.