On Sat, Dec 22, 2001 at 12:40:06PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > > Ben Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > So if I create a game with _no_ levels, but the tools to create them, > > then is it none-free? Just because the only ones available are non-free, > > doesn't preclude that it is possible to create your own. The engine has > > much more uses than just to play games (as the README in the source > > says, also for educational purposes). > > Yeah, but that's a smokescreen I think. It seems like an excellent > candidate for contrib. > > The argument you give could be applied to *any* package in contrib: > they all have *some* potential educational value, they all *might* be > useful if somebody went and wrote free analags to the nonfree things > they depend on, etc.
I think that's rediculous. Education is not a smokescreen, and you can't argue that there will never be free data available for quake2 (or know for sure that there isn't already). The quake2 engine is a gaming engine. Lots of libraries in our current source are the same sort of things, and at one time did not have a game based on them. Did they go into contrib? No. If they had a game based on them that was non-free, would we put them in contrib? Probably not, because they are libraries as opposed to binaries. Not so with the quake2 engine. However, just because it is a binary executable engine does not make it any different than a development library in terms of game development. Advertise the thing as a gaming engine, not as a game. Call the package "quake2-engine", and then once we get some, we will have "cool-game" Depend: quake2-engine. The fact is, that the quake2-engine does not depend on anything to perform what it was made for, and that is to be a gaming engine. The data is the game, and requires the engine. Makes sense to me. -- .----------=======-=-======-=========-----------=====------------=-=-----. / Ben Collins -- Debian GNU/Linux \ ` [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ' `---=========------=======-------------=-=-----=-===-======-------=--=---'