[ubuntu-tn] [FWD] [FSF] Breakthrough for Free Software Gaming

[Nizar Kerkeni]

----------------message original-----------------
De: "Peter Brown" info at fsf.org
A: info-fsf at fsf.org, info-press at fsf.org
Date: Thu, 06 May 2010 08:01:03 -0400
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> Breakthrough for Free Software Gaming--Ryzom Announces Full Release of
> Source Code and Artwork, and a Partnership with the Free Software
> Foundation to Host a Repository of the Game's Artistic Assets.
> 
> Press release: http://dev.ryzom.com/news/13 and at
> http://www.fsf.org/news/free-ryzom-1
> 
> 
> By Brett Smith - FSF Licensing Compliance Engineer
> 
> Ryzom is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG),
> where players work together to explore a fantasy world and set out on
> various quests. Today, the Ryzom team has released the game as free
> software: both the client and server programs have been released under
> the GNU Affero General Public License version 3, while its models,
> textures, and other art are covered by CC-BY-SA 3.0.
> 
> This release is probably the single-biggest contribution to free
> software games yet. If you missed it, check out the press release. We're
> thankful to the Ryzom team for making this release, and excited about
> the possibilities it presents to all free software games. The code is
> tested and proven, having run the Ryzom game since 2004, and the
> art—more than 13 gigabytes of data—can be adapted and used in other
> games. This release can provide a lot of new resources and energy for
> free software game development.
> 
> Since we're expecting people to have a lot of interest in this release,
> we wanted to provide some detailed information up-front about exactly
> what has and has not been released, and suggestions for ways developers
> can contribute to the project effectively.
> 
> All of the code necessary to run both the client and server software has
> been released under AGPLv3. If you want to play on the official Ryzom
> server today, you can do that using only free software. Modified clients
> will not be allowed to connect to the official server, but a testing
> server is available to try them out.
> 
> If you want to run your own server for the game, you have the software
> to do that, but you won't really have any world data—information about
> geography, special places, characters, quests, items, and so on—to run
> it with. Winch Gate Properties, the company that currently holds the
> copyright for all game materials and runs the official server, has
> decided not to release that data, to avoid causing disruption for their
> current player community. People who want to run their own server will
> need to develop their own world to do so—only a small test world comes
> with the code.
> 
> Unfortunately, that development can't be done with free software,
> because most of the world creation process depends on proprietary 3-D
> modeling software. Work is already underway to eliminate those
> dependencies and use free software alternatives like Blender. This is
> the next big task that needs to be done to make Ryzom even more useful
> to the free software community, so if you'd like to help, please see the
> project page for more information. In the meantime, the server code may
> be adapted for other games.
> 
> Art files from the game, including both textures and 3-D models, have
> been released under CC-BY-SA 3.0. The FSF is helping distribute these
> files by hosting a mirror for the Ryzom media server. You can use these
> files in other games, software, artistic works—anywhere, really—under
> the terms of that license. Music and sound effects are not being
> released today because Winch Gate does not have the legal rights to do
> so, but they are trying to find an arrangement that will see these files
> released under a free license as well.
> 
> Today's release offers free software developers a lot of opportunities,
> both to contribute to Ryzom and to improve other software. If you see a
> project that you'd like to see benefit, please get involved! For more
> information about this release, including downloads and more projects
> underway, please visit the Ryzom team's page.
> 
> http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/ryzom-free-software
> 
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> 

-- 

Nizar Kerkeni
LoCo ubuntu-tn and ubuntu member
http://www.ubuntu-tn.org
http://blog.nizarus.org