FreeGST *BETA* Release v0.9u1

[(SWGO)SirPepsi]

Edit: Nite, I took care of the server messages.

Thanks.

[[NH]Shadow]

well i did a test run via video

here ya go!

Fixed

[Eyes Only]

For those of you who haven't been around since the WGO days, "free-fall" was a fraud who slipped into an administrative position, then gave up server information to malicious parties.
Trash talk all you want, boy. I'm pretty secure with my maturity level. I just don't like you.

Not that this excuses his rudeness, but he does have a point about the code licenses. Those things are taken seriously in software development. Hopefully Eyes and Drai can make it compliant by the final release.

The problem with using proprietary code, is using it for monetary profit. 'Assuming' Eyes/Drai are doing so, is a risk they, or anyone else in the world that does it, takes. However, the 'owner' of said code(a) would have to prove financial loss in a Court of Law. Personally, I hope it's all legit as the game needs the effort of rescue that they are trying to provide, but do not condone use of property without the owner's permission provided there's a copyright involved. I certainly would be cautious using it, but SWGO directly involves itself by 'knowingly allowing it' as an outlet for software download.

Eyes/Drai have been conspicuously quiet about this, and I'd be interested to read what they have to say.

We really need a tinfoil hat emote. AH, heres one.

Incredible amounts of legal boundaries were ignored in the creation of this system (not just by us, but by the openspy project as well) including (but not limited to):

-Violation of multiple ToS involving gamespy services, star wars battlefront 2, some other software maybe
-reverse engineering and hackery of proprietary code (reverse engineering of a patented system, gamespy, and swbfront2 is proprietary code)
-violation of copyright laws and patents and such (distributing modified proprietary code, battlefrontii.exe)

The list goes on.

In terms of preserving the GPLv3 license: why worry about running a red light when we stole the car, blew up the gas station, and held up the cashier for a mtn dew? We havent really made any significant changes to the openspy fork to warrant release yet, I am a fan of OSS and Copyleft. We plan on trying to establish contact with some of the competition in order to get a mutual project working, hopefully both parties will benefit.

This being said, I'm not worried about the implications of any of these at all. We aren't selling anything, the game is old and ignored, glu is chopping off gamespy like a zombie bitten arm, etc. Swbfront2 among many other games are being abandoned.

One of the devs of swbfront2 I know actually "stole" (kept after he left pandemic) the source code to one of the older pandemic games, and he updates it regularly with upgrades and bugfixes, as well as maintains the moderate sized community there. Sure hes breaking tons of laws by doing this as he doesn't own the rights to the software, but in this case the software would have been incompatible with todays hardware, and would have been forgotten.

Copyright laws tend to be bull and often do more harm than good. I support piracy, DRM-free software (it only hurts the normal users), and copyleft licensing. If you find you like it, support the authors by buying it. It's what I do.

[NiteRunner81]

I would like to remind ALL of you that we've been using unlicensed code/patches for YEARS. We have another admin (whom I am not calling out to prove a point) who has developed/provided us with patches for quite a while..... and he doesn't have a squeaky past.. and a lot of people WORSHIP him... so....

Poop or get off the pot!!

[{MILL}Erik568]

MILL Plaza is now in testing, we would like some people in here to get on the server

[Ashfire908]

Hi, I guess a quick intro is in order, since I'm new here. I'm the sysadmin for the FreeGST project. I set up the server and the software on it and try to make sure the system doesn't fall over. :)

Nice job hopefully you can figure out the game spy log in i'll post a link when I get home with some of my own source modifications that might help. The only issue is that you used code the is licensed under gpl v2 and you didn't provide source code with your project (all of open-spy is gpl v2 inherited from Luigi Auriemma) so you might want to re-implement his binary's\code to a different license, sorry i'm really big on licensing issues and protection of opensource code. Also are you working on a query relay system to synchronize the different servers ie. freegst and master sharing to help formulate a single master server list and not have people using 10 different game-spy alternatives?

You can correct me if I'm wrong (I just glanced at the license), but they are not distributing any of that code so they are not required to distribute the source code.

This is indeed how the license works. You don't need to distribute the source code if you are not redistributing your modified version of the software. Our version is local to the server, and therefore not subject to this requirement. If we started sharing the binaries or parts of the code, we then would need to redistribute the source code as well.

(Source: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic. Also see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#CanIDemandACopy. These rules apply to both v2 and v3 of the GPL license.)

[CommanderOtto]

I don't think it would be a problem.... the people who play star wars galaxies today had to make several modifications to the game to make it playable after it went offline for good. I don't play it since it required a lot of modifications according to the instructions in their website, but there they are.

[WD-40]

I would like to remind ALL of you that we've been using unlicensed code/patches for YEARS. We have another admin (whom I am not calling out to prove a point) who has developed/provided us with patches for quite a while..... and he doesn't have a squeaky past.. and a lot of people WORSHIP him... so....

Poop or get off the pot!!

Eyes, I don't know why you think the 'Tin Foil' thing is an insult to me. Sorta makes me chuckle.

Nite- Ignoring 'wrongs' don't make it 'right'. But like I said, 'Financial Loss' has to occur for anyone to give a damn 'legally'. personally, I could care less (although I don't condone ) that anyone uses unlicensed code. Go for it. I suppose I unknowingly downloaded patches here myself. But they were already patches that have been downloaded a thousand times with no issues with computer performance or trojans, etc. I suppose Eyes/Drai are doing a great service here as there are no viable shortcuts to fix this issue.

Now that Eyes said what he said and addressed what needed to be, let the process fall where it may...and download away!

[(SWGO)DesertEagle]

For those of you who haven't been around since the WGO days, "free-fall" was a fraud who slipped into an administrative position, then gave up server information to malicious parties.
Trash talk all you want, boy. I'm pretty secure with my maturity level. I just don't like you.

Not that this excuses his rudeness, but he does have a point about the code licenses. Those things are taken seriously in software development. Hopefully Eyes and Drai can make it compliant by the final release.

The problem with using proprietary code, is using it for monetary profit. 'Assuming' Eyes/Drai are doing so, is a risk they, or anyone else in the world that does it, takes. However, the 'owner' of said code(a) would have to prove financial loss in a Court of Law. Personally, I hope it's all legit as the game needs the effort of rescue that they are trying to provide, but do not condone use of property without the owner's permission provided there's a copyright involved. I certainly would be cautious using it, but SWGO directly involves itself by 'knowingly allowing it' as an outlet for software download.

Eyes/Drai have been conspicuously quiet about this, and I'd be interested to read what they have to say.

We really need a tinfoil hat emote. AH, heres one.

Incredible amounts of legal boundaries were ignored in the creation of this system (not just by us, but by the openspy project as well) including (but not limited to):

-Violation of multiple ToS involving gamespy services, star wars battlefront 2, some other software maybe
-reverse engineering and hackery of proprietary code (reverse engineering of a patented system, gamespy, and swbfront2 is proprietary code)
-violation of copyright laws and patents and such (distributing modified proprietary code, battlefrontii.exe)

The list goes on.

In terms of preserving the GPLv3 license: why worry about running a red light when we stole the car, blew up the gas station, and held up the cashier for a mtn dew? We havent really made any significant changes to the openspy fork to warrant release yet, I am a fan of OSS and Copyleft. We plan on trying to establish contact with some of the competition in order to get a mutual project working, hopefully both parties will benefit.

This being said, I'm not worried about the implications of any of these at all. We aren't selling anything, the game is old and ignored, glu is chopping off gamespy like a zombie bitten arm, etc. Swbfront2 among many other games are being abandoned.

One of the devs of swbfront2 I know actually "stole" (kept after he left pandemic) the source code to one of the older pandemic games, and he updates it regularly with upgrades and bugfixes, as well as maintains the moderate sized community there. Sure hes breaking tons of laws by doing this as he doesn't own the rights to the software, but in this case the software would have been incompatible with todays hardware, and would have been forgotten.

Copyright laws tend to be bull and often do more harm than good. I support piracy, DRM-free software (it only hurts the normal users), and copyleft licensing. If you find you like it, support the authors by buying it. It's what I do.

I know of an Activision dev that did something very similar for a game called Battlezone. Last I checked he was working on a new patch to fix a bunch of issues and keep it up to date.

I do recommend releasing the source code when you are ready, but I certainly wouldn't be in any hurry.

[deadmeow]

I edit Madden and Bill Walsh College Football roms for Sega Genesis all the time, and put them up for download. When it comes down to it, they are old games that nobody cares about anymore. In the case of SWBF2, nobody is posting the entire game for free (it is still for retail sale), just an edited/patched exe file to fix broken netplay for people who have already purchased it.

The fact that Steam still sells SWBF2 means that we will have a small trickle of people coming to play the game, and the Steam SWBF2 forums are busy.