Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@g.o>
To: Todd Hollenshead <toddh@××××××××××.com>
Cc: games@g.o, gentoo-dev@g.o, johnc@××××××××××.com, adrianc@××××××××××.com, kevinc@××××××××××.com, ttimo@××××××××××.com
Subject: [gentoo-dev] Re: Gentoo Linux and Licensing for RTCW, ET, Q3A and other Id games
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 21:26:46
Message-Id: 1065216674.29320.431.camel@localhost
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?

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