Missing license tags on the Repo

[diligentcircle]

So, last night and this morning, I was basically going through all the software on my Pandora to find out what games I had installed were free software and remove most of the ones that aren't (not Audiorace yet in the hope that there is a minute possibility that the author might possibly liberate it, but I digress). Of course, since PNDManager doesn't show you this information, it was a tedious process of looking back and forth between PNDManager and the web Repo, but I got through them all.


One thing I noticed, though, is that there are a ton of programs on the Repo, most of them from 2011, with no license specified there in the PXML. Lots of maintainers have been guilty of this. Some games I noticed with this problem include Mole Invasion, BomberClone, PandoraPanic, PanJoust, panmines, Super Geometry Dust, and quite a few others.


So this post is a simple call to maintainers of such programs: please remedy this problem ASAP.

 

[mcobit]

Panmines should be freeware, as stated in the additional info field.


Pandorapanic is a communityeffort and should be open.


Super Geometry Dust shouldn't be gpl, as wermy makes well earned money with it on ios.


MoleInvasion is an opensourcegame as well as Bomberclone. Just google them if you want to know the licenses.


Of course it would be nice if every developer would include the licensetag. I should have it in all of my pnds, but if not please pm me.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

"Super Geometry Dust shouldn't be gpl, as wermy makes well earned money with it on ios."


Nothing forbids making money with gpl programs.

 

[diligentcircle]

Super Geometry Dust is obviously proprietary freeware on the Pandora. Just "Freeware" would probably do for the license tag.


I know about Bomberclone and I think I knew about Mole Invasion. I was writing comments on almost all of the ones I found that don't specify a license similar to "Can you please put a license in the standard license tag of the PXML?", and for a couple I saw what license they were and mentioned that in the comment.

 

[crow_riot]

hm i've seen your comment about audiorace but didn't have time yet to comment.


in fact audiorace is freeware, like super geometry dust ist. it will always be.


i dont know where and how i can change the license being displayed. the current license just does not allow (at least thats my purpose) OTHER PEOPLE to create money with my app, but the rest is just free.


i've also unticked the "redistributable app" option within the repo settings, which is just because i want to try to keep the pages where it appears narrow, so that i'm aware where people comment on it or can report problems.

 

[PokeParadox]

PandoraPanic! is GPLv3 it says so on it's wiki page. I'm not re uploading just for this but I will fix it locally... although I thought I already did so


Thruster is closed source. I had to ask permission to port it.


EDIT: Actually it didn't say... so I've updated it... sigh

 

[diligentcircle]

hm i've seen your comment about audiorace but didn't have time yet to comment.


in fact audiorace is freeware, like super geometry dust ist. it will always be.


i dont know where and how i can change the license being displayed. the current license just does not allow (at least thats my purpose) OTHER PEOPLE to create money with my app, but the rest is just free.


i've also unticked the "redistributable app" option within the repo settings, which is just because i want to try to keep the pages where it appears narrow, so that i'm aware where people comment on it or can report problems.

Disallowing redistribution or other people selling the program makes it nonfree. Not providing the source code also makes it nonfree. Free software is not the same as freeware.


If you release Audiorace under the GNU GPL, then yes, that means other people can distribute it for a fee, but what is the consequence, really, if someone decides to try to make money digitally redistributing verbatim copies of Audiorace (an unlikely event)? A few people lose out on some dollars. Distributing free software for a fee is never effective at "ripping off" people; the only way it works is if it is genuinely useful to someone, e.g. selling CDs with free software on it to people in more rural areas that don't have good internet connections. If someone makes a major improvement and distributes it for a fee, you can take that improvement and incorporate it into your gratis version thanks to copyleft (they must release their changes, if at all, under the GPL).


Now look at the benefits of releasing Audiorace as free software (a license such as the GNU GPL):


- Anyone can improve it or port it, and then you can incorporate any improvements you like into the "official" version


- The game would get support from strict free software communities and organizations, such as the FSF and users of Trisquel. This is actually what I was thinking of most when I made that comment; Audiorace is so fantastic, I think it would go right up with the most popular free software games if it were free software. Or, at the very least, more people would like it.


- Certain redistribution of free software for a fee can be quite beneficial to certain people, like the example I mentioned above with people that have no or bad internet connections.

i dont know where and how i can change the license being displayed.

It's a standard tag in the PXML format. See: http://pandorawiki.org/PXML_specification

 

[sebt3]

The licences TAG have been added to the spec after most my pnds have been out. I wont re-upload my PNDs (some are over 200M) just to change that tag


panmines is now GPL

 

[milkshake]

One thing I noticed, though, is that there are a ton of programs on the Repo, most of them from 2011, with no license specified there in the PXML. Lots of maintainers have been guilty of this. Some games I noticed with this problem include Mole Invasion, BomberClone, PandoraPanic, PanJoust, panmines, Super Geometry Dust, and quite a few others.


So this post is a simple call to maintainers of such programs: please remedy this problem ASAP.

The license sections in the PXML were not part of the spec till later (late 2011) so thats probably why.


edit: ninjad