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Where can I fin license information of the pak 128 ?

Started by benste, October 15, 2009, 07:11:14 PM

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benste

Hi, I prefer to play simutrans with pak 128, instead of 64 cause it simply looks smarter.
Some days ago I noticed that Ubuntu(Linux dist.) shares simutrans 102 and a pak64 as packages in their universion sources.

I've spoke to the one partly responsible for that, and he told me that he didn't consider to upload pak 128 cause there is no clear / free license information.

As I'm about to learn on how to build packages I would like to redistribute a version of pak 128 through 1st my personal PPA, and possibly later if it's working good, do something to get this merged into Ubuntu and Debian.

So where can I find the necessary license information, there is nothing included as in normal source codes.


By the way, what about the other paks, e.g the HD, comic, 128.britain, 128.japan - would be kind if someone could answer the question for those paks too.

PS: Looks like I'm talking about a topic discussed back in 2008, is there something new ?
http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=388.0

The Hood

pak128 licensing is a bit of a tricky issue - see http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=1442.0

Basicly it's closed-source at present, which doesn't lend itself to being distributed with linux, although I'm not an expert on these things.

As for pak128.Britain, it is completely opensource under the artistic license (same as pak64 I think) and the sources are on sourceforge.  It is currently incomplete, although definitely playable.  Any questions about this one, feel free to ask me.

AFAIK pakHD is no longer compatible with recent versions and isn't active, and I have no idea about the others.




benste

Thanks a lot for this update, so I'll start with the British version and give the Debian dev. a little hint that something is moving :-)

thx a lot for including the license within the source.

wernieman

We work on the Projekt to bring PAK128 to a artistic license ... but we miss some grafics ...

Look at the openPAK128 on the nightly-Side.
I hope you understand my English

helifino

Quote from: The Hood on October 15, 2009, 07:17:08 PMBasicly it's closed-source at present, which doesn't lend itself to being distributed with linux, although I'm not an expert on these things.

The source license doesn't matter as much as the object license - there are repositories for closed-source yet freely-distributable data (the shareware WAD file for "Doom", for example) in many distributions.

benste

Hi again,

helifino, as some packages from Ubuntu may be remerged to Debian which likes to be 100% opensource (they even changed the closed source part of FF and renamed it to Iceweasel), I woun't think a distribution will be possible without Objectlicense as you call it.

But I'll start with the pak128first, maybe I'll manage to get into packaging this week. If it's done I'll post you my PPA, for those who'd like to test / use a not selfbuild environoment.

As Simutrans is also listed in the new Ubuntu Software Center, there may be some more users in future who don't know who to compile from source. And if i'm honest I've also had lots of problems when I used simutrans for the first time.

prissi

As pak64 is the standard package and is open source, all concerns for that are alraedy clarified. This isssue is only critical, when pak128 should go there too. HOwever, I think most important is it, to have the foot in the door (as german say) and everything else can go more slowly.

ansgar

I already created a Debian package for pak128.Britain two months ago.  I have now updated the package for release 1.05 and uploaded it to my PPA repository on Launchpad[1].  It should be usable, but I will wait a bit longer before asking for an upload to Debian as a new stable release for Simutrans seems to be coming soon.  Comments are always welcome.

Creating a package for pak128 should be really simple, but as it cannot be uploaded to Debian and/or Ubuntu due to a missing distribution license, I have not done so.

Regards,
Ansgar

[1] https://launchpad.net/~ansgar-43-1/+archive/ppa, packages are available for Jaunty and Karmic

benste

Thx ansgar, i didn't know that you meant that in your message on launchpad :-) I'll add your PPA to my next stable installation of karmic.

But anyway I'll keep on experimenting to create a deb package, atm it looks still very complex for me but let's find out. If I'll manage to build it, may I contact you again for a review ?