Re: [Trisquel-users] FOSS gaming
Sorry, but I think this is like selling watering-cans in the desert. We don't have a problem organizing this huge amount of excellent free software games at the moment. Our problem is: there are extremly few excellent free software games. So if you want to contribute to the situation I highly recommend joining a developer team or starting a new game project. And of course we have tons of games but most of them are not what a gamer would call a game. You can't compare some 2d arcade games to epic masterpieces of the proprietary world.
Re: [Trisquel-users] FOSS gaming
Well I have installed Minetest in creative mode and I am very happy with this game. :) With Minetest you may build something like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M183oxcU8zo I don't know any masterpieces games from proprietary world to do this for free or for money except Minecraft. (which is a indie game). But Minetest ist the free variant of Minecraft so is better.
Re: [Trisquel-users] FOSS gaming
You might be happy with Minetest, but that doesn't change the fact that the non-free world has much better games than the free world in much greater numbers. Games are a tough category to win at with freedom. Any two games are usually sufficiently different that one cannot easily replace the other. SuperTux doesn't stop people from wanting to play Super Mario Bros, for example; differences that would be simple adaptation for programs designed to do work are what make SuperTux and Super Mario Bros completely different games in the eyes of players. This means that the non-free world necessarily having more games than the free world is more noticeable than for any other type of program. Another problem is the non-free world keeps churning out more and more games like a factory. A lot of gamers are used to this now, and they would be disappointed to not have this in the free world. But this isn't easy to achieve; it happens in the non-free world because there are tons of indie game developers. With that in mind, what we really need is a social change: we need to convince indie developers to take the extra step of releasing their source code and applying a free/libre software license. There are a lot of challenges involved in this, most notably the misguided notion of source code being art that they don't want people to tamper with, but it's what we need to happen for the gaming landscape of the free world to be even remotely as good as the gaming landscape of the non-free world. Adding a couple free games is good; it makes transition to the free world a little easier for some people, but for every free game made by us, hundreds of non-free games are made by indie developers.
Re: [Trisquel-users] FOSS gaming
Once we are able to build our own hardware it is possible to make our own gaming machine without any malicious features; we can make sure that it has no internet access, no camera, no microphone etc. Since I don't do any practicle work with games, I wouldn't refuse to run non-free games on such a self-made machine because I know that it can't have any malicious functionality.
Re: [Trisquel-users] FOSS gaming
The free gaming machine should also have working 3D :). I think the lack of that is part of the problem.
Re: [Trisquel-users] AMD Radeon 8330 graphics with Trisquel?
The FireGL V5250 in my T60p seems to fall into that category.. I get intermittent crashes with it under the open source drivers, but I don't have the same issues with fglrx on a non-libre kernel. It's really bumming me out, I love this machine, I want to run Trisquel 6 on it and be stable :( Unfortunately I'm not yet skilled enough with hardware issue troubleshooting in GNU/Linux to know where to start trying to fix the problem.
Re: [Trisquel-users] FOSS gaming
what we really need is a social change: we need to convince indie developers to take the extra step of releasing their source code and applying a free/libre software license Herein lies the problem. It's not just a case of releasing source - applying a license like the GPL, especially in the case of downloaded software removes the possibility of getting rich from sales of the game. Freedoms 2 and 3 mean that anyone can legally obtain a copy of a game without paying for it. So the problem isn't that developers fear losing control of their art, but that they want to be paid for it.
[Trisquel-users] Re : Replicant ?
Thought I'd share this post about freeing CyanogenMod that I just stumbled upon: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2550769 Actually, as the author explains, it just removes some non-free userspace applications. There are still some non-free libraries, drivers and pieces of firmware on the phone, but it's a step in the right direction if you are unable to install Replicant and still want/need a smartphone.
Re: [Trisquel-users] FOSS gaming
Keep in mind that there are tons of gratis, non-commercial indie games, too. Most of them don't get source code releases because their authors didn't think of the possibility that it could be important. I don't think not being able to get rich is the problem with commercial games, though. It's a well-known fact that video game developers don't make a whole lot of money; the average salary for a commercial video game developer, IIRC, is around $30,000-$40,000, a lot less than other programming jobs. They do it because they want to make games, not because they think they'll get rich. The only ones who think they can get rich are naive amateurs. This doesn't say anything about video game publishing corporations; of course corporations put the bottom line above everything else, but I think many indie commercial game developers would be fine with releasing their source code if they knew that they could still make a decent wage. I've written an article about that actually: http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/business/business-and-law/you-dont-need-to-hide-your-source-code-r3503
Re: [Trisquel-users] FOSS gaming
This is a very good article and reading the very stupid comments drives me really crazy...
Re: [Trisquel-users] Replicant ?
Yes, you can do every one of those things, either built-in or via third-party applications from F-Droid.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Are fonts software?
On the contrary, most proprietary foundries now offer web embedding. However, now that I think about it, I think it's more like a video game with a free engine but proprietary art. You can always use the CSS rules to find the font file and copy it, and then use FontForge to convert it to a font suitable for desktop use. Would I be correct in this assertion?
Re: [Trisquel-users] Trisquel Desktop Environment
Thank you.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Your thoughts on Firefox to have ads in the browser
I'm still in favor of starting to offer Chromium as an option for Trisquel but with questionable licenses/libraries removed or blocked.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Your thoughts on Firefox to have ads in the browser
On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 02:46:55AM +0100, tegskywal...@hotmail.com wrote: I'm still in favor of starting to offer Chromium as an option for Trisquel but with questionable licenses/libraries removed or blocked. Why? you want to help google/nsa spy on users?
Re: [Trisquel-users] FOSS gaming
Yes I am aware that those games exist, I was just suggesting that there could be a place for these games to be distributed There is a place: Get them into existing GNU/Linux distro repositories. As you've said, the distribution issue's already solved so that's the only thing left. As mtjm pointed out, you should only have to get it in a few of the big root ones (like Debian, etc.) and all of their derivatives get to pick it up. That's the thing to work on, IMO, not re-solving the software distribution issue.
Re: [Trisquel-users] Your thoughts on Firefox to have ads in the browser
You seem to be confused. Chromium is the BSD licensed base for Chrome and doesn't include Google icons, their tracking systems, and the non-free Flash and PDF reader plugins. It runs the same as Chrome, but without the crap. This forum doesn't like underscores in the URL, so here you go for Wikipedia: http://ur1.ca/gnsfx
Re: [Trisquel-users] Your thoughts on Firefox to have ads in the browser
i'm not confused, are you? Google-Chrome is based off of Chromium, so improving Chromium helps Google in the end - and by extension the NSA. Encouraging Chromium's use, reporting bugs, fixing bugs - in the end, helps Google and by extension the NSA... Chromium is also considered non-free software by trisquel - end of story there. This is the second time tonight, I'm seeing free or quasi-free (in chromium's case) software being used by companies for what i'd consider unethical reasons... sad.
Re: [Trisquel-users] FOSS gaming
Just wanted to say I agree with the people who pointed out that the distribution problem is pretty much solved thanks to the wonderful package management system APT and it's various frontends. And that it would likely make a much bigger difference if you * Improved the games themselves * Got them included into repositories, preferably as far upstream as possible (Debian) for maximum coverage
