A reaction to: Fedora Game must have
Dec. 25th, 2007 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hansdegoedeHi All,
First of all merry Christmas to all who celebrate Christmas. Now, back on topic, as a Games SIG member, I feel that a blog post like Alexey Kuznetsov's Fedora Game must have posts, warrants a reaction. Such best of Linux games lists are very interesting, and should be analyzed a bit further, below is a merged list of all 3 lists posted by Alexey in alphabetical order, with the status of the game in relation to Fedora:
So all in all the 3 mentioned lists name 37 games (29 when not counting commercial ones), of which 17 are currently in Fedora (15 when not counting autodownloader ones). When looking at things with more details: of the 29 non commercial games, 17 are currently in Fedora, 2 are under review, 2 can be added as they are, 2 can be added after clearing license issues with upstream, 3 can be packaged using autodownloader, 1 needs to be investigated and 2 are not suitable.
So summarizing worst case of the 37 listed games, 15 are not suitable for Fedora (when not counting autodownloader using packages). Best case, excluding 100% commercial games, of the 29 non commercial games only 2 cannot be packaged at all!
First of all merry Christmas to all who celebrate Christmas. Now, back on topic, as a Games SIG member, I feel that a blog post like Alexey Kuznetsov's Fedora Game must have posts, warrants a reaction. Such best of Linux games lists are very interesting, and should be analyzed a bit further, below is a merged list of all 3 lists posted by Alexey in alphabetical order, with the status of the game in relation to Fedora:
Commercial game, not suitable for Fedora.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: alienarena. Strange enough this is only available in the development repo, someone should file a bug to request it to be made available for F-8 too.
Commercial game, not suitable for Fedora.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: armacycles-ad (packaged under a different name due to potential trademark issues.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: wesnoth
Commercial game, not suitable for Fedora.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: bzflag
Engine is zlib, datafiles come under a variety of licensing, basicly the datafiles licensing is a mess. Someone should take the time to mail all authors of textures and levels which are not under a suitable license, then mail those authors asking for a license change and if that doesn't work strip out the relevant textures + levels, alternatively we could use autodownloader, but thats not prefered. Notice that upstream is NOT insterested in helping with clearing up any license issues, so perhaps using autodownloader is the best option after all.
Same as Cube 2, but the datafiles licenses are an even bigger mess.
Engine is GPL, datafiles license is to restrictive, but I've mailed them and they said they would be happy to put a better license on the next version. It looks like the next version may take a while, so someone should mail them to ask if they are willing to relicense the current version under a more suitable license.
Commercial game, not suitable for Fedora.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: FlightGear
Often requested game, maybe not acceptable for Fedora, because of missing free songs/levels and DVD support, someone really needs to dive into this one and see if it can be packaged. (edit: Spot is working on this, see the comments)
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: frozen-bubble
Interesting game, no reason this couldn't be in Fedora, so we should start packaging this.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: glest
- Gridwars
Don't know why this was put on the list, it has been taken down by its original author because of legal troubles, still available elsewhere but only as a blob, definitely not suitable for Fedora
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: maniadrive. Unfortunately, its not playable in F-8 when using opensource 3D drivers due to several mesa bugs. If you have an intel graphics "card" and want this to be playable please add a comment to this bug (which includes a patch fixing this), requesting for it to be fixed.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: neverball
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: nexuiz
Engine is opensource, datafiles may not be redistributed, either use autodownloader or don't package at all.
Non commercial use only, not suitable for Fedora
Commercial game, not suitable for Fedora.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: scorched3d
Being packaged, proves to be hard to get right, almost done though, see the review request.
From their FAQ: "The core game is released under GPL License. Fortunately as of now, there are also two mods which have been released under the GNU/GPL, and several more which do not have clear licence terms (owned by their modder). However, there are also several mods for which some parts are still under copyright of Atari. For these you need to own the original TA game if you want to play."So that means that atleast the engine and the 2 free modules should be ok for Fedora, I guess its time to start packaging this.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: torcs
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: tremulous
Commercial game (mod), not suitable for Fedora.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: ppracer
Uses the GPL quake3 engine, but the datafiles may not be redistributed, an autodownloader using installer and launcher, packagename urbanterror, will become available in F-8 updates-testing soon, in the mean time grab it from here: http://koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/quake3/1.34/0.6.rc4.fc8/
Under review, but stalled due to several legal issues with the datafiles, see this review request.
Commercial game, not suitable for Fedora.
Engine is GPL, the datafile license seems to allow free redistribution, I've asked them for clarificaition and they said my interpretation was right, unfortunately I've lost the mail with their reply. I've aksed them again, this can be packaged as soon as I get conformation from them.
Already packaged for Fedora, packagename: warzone2100. Note this one is not 64 bit clean, and thus not build for x86_64, use the i386 version on x86_64, upstream is working on fixing this.
Commercial game, not suitable for Fedora.
Uses the GPL quake3 engine, but the datafiles have a not for commercial use restriction, an autodownloader using installer and launcher, packagename worldofpadman, will become available in F-8 updates-testing soon, in the mean time grab it from here: http://koji.fedoraproject.org/packages/quake3/1.34/0.6.rc4.fc8/
So all in all the 3 mentioned lists name 37 games (29 when not counting commercial ones), of which 17 are currently in Fedora (15 when not counting autodownloader ones). When looking at things with more details: of the 29 non commercial games, 17 are currently in Fedora, 2 are under review, 2 can be added as they are, 2 can be added after clearing license issues with upstream, 3 can be packaged using autodownloader, 1 needs to be investigated and 2 are not suitable.
So summarizing worst case of the 37 listed games, 15 are not suitable for Fedora (when not counting autodownloader using packages). Best case, excluding 100% commercial games, of the 29 non commercial games only 2 cannot be packaged at all!
