1 |
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 16:48, Todd Hollenshead wrote: |
2 |
> Mr. Gianelloni, |
3 |
> |
4 |
> I am Todd Hollenshead, CEO of Id Software, Inc. ("id Software"). Perhaps |
5 |
> you should have contacted me personally before now. I can appreciate your |
6 |
> sentiment that you are a fan of id Software games and enjoy porting them to |
7 |
> Linux. Such goodwill unfortunately does not take the place of a |
8 |
> contract. I prefer not to be unnecessarily heavy handed, however, you have |
9 |
> put me in a position such that I must make clear the rights of id |
10 |
> Software. I take exception to several aspects of your email. |
11 |
|
12 |
First off, thank you for your quick response. I was honestly not aware |
13 |
of who to contact. As I stated in my email, I was not contacted by |
14 |
anyone at id Software. I understand the rights of id Software, which is |
15 |
why I am contacting you now since I wish to resolve this. |
16 |
|
17 |
> Firstly, no one has any authorization to distribute or redistribute any |
18 |
> property owned by id Software, use any trademark or trade name or any other |
19 |
> copyrighted property of id Software unless we agree to such use in a |
20 |
> formally executed and signed legal document, or they are acting under the |
21 |
> express provisions and within the acceptable limitation of an applicable |
22 |
> End User License Agreement. Since id Software doesn't have any written |
23 |
> agreement with Gentoo Linux or Gentoo Games, the only authorization you may |
24 |
> have is the permitted distribution/redistribution of certain files under |
25 |
> the appropriate End User License Agreement (EULA) that was originally |
26 |
> distributed with the files from id Software or our expressly authorized |
27 |
> representative. If you believe you are or may be in violation of any such |
28 |
> EULA, then you should cease such activity immediately. |
29 |
|
30 |
We are not distributing the software at all. Portage downloads the |
31 |
files from the official mirrors, just like a user would were they to do |
32 |
it manually. We do not mirror these files on our own mirror structure. |
33 |
|
34 |
> Secondly, Timothee Bisset is not an employee or agent of id Software, and |
35 |
> as such, has no right or authority to make any legally binding |
36 |
> representation on behalf of id Software or enter into contracts on behalf |
37 |
> of id Software or otherwise modify or alter any existing license or |
38 |
> agreement, such as the RTCW and Enemy Territory EULAs. Any modification or |
39 |
> amendment of any existing license, or any implementation of a new license, |
40 |
> must be expressly authorized by id Software via a written and fully |
41 |
> executed contract. Thus, you should not be under the false impression that |
42 |
> any email discussion, including the present discussion, has in any fashion |
43 |
> modified, altered or amended any existing EULA. |
44 |
|
45 |
I was unaware of Timothee's standing (or lack thereof) in the company. |
46 |
|
47 |
As for modification of the EULA, I don't expect there to be any. This |
48 |
entire thing is to attempt to show that we do not believe that we are in |
49 |
violation of the EULA now that we force the user to accept it. We are |
50 |
informing you of these actions in good faith and to make you aware of |
51 |
them in the event that there is something we are unaware of that would |
52 |
prevent us from doing so. |
53 |
|
54 |
> Further, id Software is not under any obligation to respond to this or any |
55 |
> other correspondence submitted by you or any other representative of your |
56 |
> company, Gentoo Games, or your apparent affiliate, Gentoo Linux. It is |
57 |
> clear in the EULA that id Software reserves any rights not expressly |
58 |
> granted by such EULA and that such terms may not be altered unilaterally by |
59 |
> sending an email concluding that a "final solution" has been reached unless |
60 |
> further contact is made. |
61 |
|
62 |
I am not a member of Gentoo Games. Gentoo Games is a commercial entity |
63 |
which releases free games under a "GameCD" moniker. It is a separate |
64 |
entity entirely. |
65 |
|
66 |
The only parties I am concerned with are Gentoo Linux and id Software. |
67 |
|
68 |
> To the extent that Gentoo Games or Gentoo Linux is in violation of any of |
69 |
> the provision of any EULA or any id Software game, or that Gentoo Games or |
70 |
> Gentoo Linux is distributing or redistributing any property of id Software |
71 |
> without an express license, demand is hereby made to cease such |
72 |
> unauthorized and infringing activity immediately. Please confirm your |
73 |
> compliance with this demand via return email. |
74 |
|
75 |
As I stated above, we are redistributing nothing except for a small |
76 |
ebuild file which is copyright Gentoo Technologies, Inc. The ebuild |
77 |
file is a recipe which instructs our package management system how to |
78 |
install this software on a Gentoo Linux system. |
79 |
|
80 |
The ebuild performs these actions: |
81 |
|
82 |
1. Download the game/patches from the official mirrors |
83 |
2. Ask the user if they accept the license (EULA) for the game |
84 |
3. Unpack the files from the game/patch into a temporary directory |
85 |
4. Copy files from the temporary directory to a "sandbox" location |
86 |
which mirrors the local filesystem. This is what keeps incomplete |
87 |
installations from breaking the running system and is simply an |
88 |
intermediary step. |
89 |
5. Copy files from the sandbox to the live filesystem exactly as they |
90 |
would be if installed from the original package. |
91 |
|
92 |
No modification of any id Software supplied file is done. The only |
93 |
thing that is done is some custom scripts are added which facilitate |
94 |
such things as launching the game easier and starting a dedicated |
95 |
server. |
96 |
|
97 |
> I must reserve any right or remedy of id Software and make clear that |
98 |
> nothing herein shall constitute a waiver of any potential right or remedy |
99 |
> of id Software. |
100 |
|
101 |
I do not believe that we are infringing on any rights of id Software. |
102 |
As I said above, this is more of a "heads up" to id out of good faith to |
103 |
inform you of our plans. |
104 |
|
105 |
> Sincerely, |
106 |
> |
107 |
> Todd Hollenshead |
108 |
> CEO |
109 |
> id Software, Inc. |
110 |
> |
111 |
> At 02:35 PM 10/3/2003, Chris Gianelloni wrote: |
112 |
> > For those of you that do not know me, allow me to introduce myself. |
113 |
> >My name is Chris Gianelloni and I am a developer for Gentoo Linux. I am |
114 |
> >on the games team, which makes me responsible for gaming on Gentoo |
115 |
> >Linux. I am not affiliated with Gentoo Games (the company) as they are |
116 |
> >a separate entity from Gentoo Linux. I am also the maintainer of the |
117 |
> >ebuilds for Return to Castle Wolfenstein and RTCW: Enemy Territory. For |
118 |
> >those of you not familiar with Gentoo Linux and our package management |
119 |
> >system, portage, an ebuild is simply a recipe for installing a piece of |
120 |
> >software which allows it to be tracked by portage. The syntax is |
121 |
> >extremely simple and very easy to follow since it closely mirrors bash |
122 |
> >scripting syntax. |
123 |
> > |
124 |
> > All non-GPL Id games are currently removed from our package |
125 |
> >management system (portage) due to an issue about licensing that was |
126 |
> >brought to my attention via our Bugzilla[1] web site. The issue was |
127 |
> >apparently brought to light by Timothee Besset in a post on |
128 |
> >http://www.linuxgames.com[2] where I am also a poster and my email |
129 |
> >address is publicly available. I was never contacted by Timothee, nor |
130 |
> >anyone else at Id Software, so I proceeded to start a dialog with |
131 |
> >Timothee about the problem as he perceived it and possible solutions. |
132 |
> >In the mean time, I had masked the package (ET) in portage so users |
133 |
> >could no longer install it except via the Makeself installer. Our |
134 |
> >package did not ask the user to agree to the license specifically. I |
135 |
> >agreed with Timothee that this was a problem, so I quickly rectified it |
136 |
> >by removing the ability to install ET. |
137 |
> > |
138 |
> > After some emails back and forth (available upon request) between |
139 |
> >Timothee and myself, it became apparent that we were at an impasse on |
140 |
> >the issue, so I removed ET and RTCW from portage and asked the |
141 |
> >maintainer of the Quake III Arena ebuilds (Mike Frysinger) to remove |
142 |
> >those as well, since they also used the Makeself installer and would be |
143 |
> >subject to the same restrictions as pointed out by Timothee to myself. |
144 |
> >I asked Timothee if there was anyone else at Id Software that I should |
145 |
> >contact about this situation. I have yet to receive a response to that |
146 |
> >email which was sent on September 22nd. |
147 |
> > |
148 |
> > The old disputed ebuild can be viewed via our viewcvs[3] web page and |
149 |
> >is quite easy to follow. If there is any questions about any of the |
150 |
> >functionality of the ebuild, I can provide it upon request. We have |
151 |
> >since added a check_license function to the eutils.eclass. An eclass is |
152 |
> >a group of functions which can be called so as to not repeat code |
153 |
> >unnecessarily in our ebuilds. You can view the full eutils.eclass[4] |
154 |
> >also which is the current version in portage. |
155 |
> > |
156 |
> > The Gentoo Linux games team has decided that we wish to return Id |
157 |
> >games to our portage tree, allowing users to install them with a simple |
158 |
> >command and allowing portage to track the files and versions, making |
159 |
> >upgrades easier for our users. For retail games, the original CD or |
160 |
> >installation files are still needed. The CD key is still required. We |
161 |
> >are not avoiding any copy protection schemes. We plan on adding a call |
162 |
> >to check_license (in eutils.eclass) to the pkg_setup (pre-unpack) |
163 |
> >section of the ebuild. Attached is a diff against the last version of |
164 |
> >enemy-territory-2.56.ebuild. The unpack_makeself function can be found |
165 |
> >in the eutils.eclass linked above. If there are any questions about |
166 |
> >this ebuild, the patch, or the eclass, please direct them to me at |
167 |
> >wolf31o2@g.o and I will get back to you in a timely manner. |
168 |
> > |
169 |
> > The games team has decided that this is our official response to the |
170 |
> >licensing issue and will consider this a final solution unless a request |
171 |
> >is made on the contrary from official Id channels. I do not know if |
172 |
> >anyone at Splash Damage needs to be contacted in this, as well. Please |
173 |
> >forward this to any party which may need to be privy to this |
174 |
> >information. I am sending this to the gentoo-dev@g.o email list |
175 |
> >so it can be viewed by the Gentoo developers and users subscribed to the |
176 |
> >list. |
177 |
> > |
178 |
> > You can find a discussion about this issue in the |
179 |
> >gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list[5]. |
180 |
> > |
181 |
> > I hope this reaches you all in good spirits and I thank you all for |
182 |
> >not only making the best games around, but also for taking the time and |
183 |
> >energy to port to the platform that I love and also to take the time out |
184 |
> >of your busy schedules to read this very long-winded email. |
185 |
> > |
186 |
> >References: |
187 |
> >[1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28707 |
188 |
> >[2] |
189 |
> >http://www.linuxgames.com/news/feedback.php?action=displaythread&threadID=21381&identiferID=6345 |
190 |
> >[3] |
191 |
> >http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/games-fps/enemy-territory/Attic/enemy-territory-2.56.ebuild?rev=1.2&hideattic=0&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup |
192 |
> >[4] |
193 |
> >http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/eclass/eutils.eclass?rev=1.61&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup |
194 |
> >[5] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/12400/match=eula |
195 |
> > |
196 |
> >Once again, I thank you all, |
197 |
> > |
198 |
> >-- |
199 |
> >Chris Gianelloni |
200 |
> >Developer, Gentoo Linux |
201 |
> >Games Team |
202 |
> > |
203 |
> >Is your power animal a pengiun? |
204 |
> >Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=enemy-territory-2.56.ebuild.diff |
205 |
> >Content-Type: text/plain; name=enemy-territory-2.56.ebuild.diff; charset= |
206 |
> > |
207 |
-- |
208 |
Chris Gianelloni |
209 |
Developer, Gentoo Linux |
210 |
Games Team |
211 |
|
212 |
Is your power animal a pengiun? |