Oolite Bulletins

Good to see that Oolite has been taken off e-bay. (For now at least)

I started to look around e-bay just in case there were others. Well, quite unrelated to Oolite, people are "ripping off" B&B and Elite in other ways.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Elite-A2-Glossy-P ... 27b5547317

Nothing to do with us, but interesting.

I've been reading this with interest and it seems to me that we are talking at length about two different things here and getting them confused with each other.

1) The incoming game: Basically oolite raw that holds not just a passing resemblance to elite. This is the thing that has people a little worried, original makers noticing that someone is able to profit from something very similar to their game. The thing is this is the joy of obsolescence very few people are going to play a wire frame or block colour game (unless they are connoisseurs or oldies). This brings us onto the next version:

2) Fully weaponry eye candy oxp'd up to the nuts Oolite. Face it guys, in our race to improve we have made a marketable product (quite accidentally). On which we ALL (well all of us who have written something for it (whatever that something is)) have an investment, on the stipulation that NO-one else profited by it. This quite rightly makes us all feel a little cheated.

This is the double anxiety we face; the annoyance that someone is profiting by our hard work and by profiting from it they may cause it's death.

I would suggest killing two birds with one stone:

There is no point defusing a bomb after it's gone off and people will always try and flog something they've gotten for free.

Frontier already know we exist. Frontier haven't tried to kill us yet. (they may do, in the future, at some point or maybe they'll never get round to it). It would be useful in our defence to actively disassociate ourselves from any profitable sales of oolite. How can we do this? Web-spider e-bay and some more notable search engines sniffing for oolite and $ or £ on the same site should do it for starters. Also informing the people who have bought the product that;

a) It is available in fully operational form for FREE.
b) Is supported by an international community of retro gamers, which they are welcome to join
c) Is being constantly improved & added to by that community for FREE.
d) Has NEVER been offered as a CD or DVD at any price.

This provides provable evidence that "the creators" had no wish to profit from the endeavour and actively dissuade others from trying to do so.
Like it or not we have facilitated the sale of oolite by making it so darn good. Maybe we should take responsibility for the creation and even if we can't prevent its sale by the unscrupulous at least proffer a cure.

Proactive? I say yes, high profile? I say no.

You make some good points, but I wonder how we are supposed to contact or inform people who have already bought Oolite clones. Also scanning the web for new clones is going to be a big task, and it's questionable whether we can take effective action if/when we find any.
Much better I would have thought to look again at the licensing situation. I think after all this time that if Frontier were bothered by us we would know by now, and more 'appropriate' licensing would help to maintain the status quo.
We can't do much about the un-licensed OXPs* but most/all new OXPs normally have a suitable license, so maybe we should (in consultation with Giles) look at the license of the core game.

* There might be a case for slowly 'losing' the un-licensed OXPs. Remove mention/links from the Wiki, and also make a 'rule' that to be included all (old and new) OXPs must use an acceptable license.

Embed one image into the executable. Leave the rest of the game pulling it's resources from the resources folder, but embed something like this as the splash...

Smivs wrote:

I wonder how we are supposed to contact or inform people who have already bought Oolite clones.

As mentioned earlier, contact could be made with those who've left feedback with the seller. Won't reach all of them, of course, but those reached could be made aware of the latest version and the bigger selection of OXPs. A good thing, no? And if it led to a whole bunch of irate reviews and plummeting ebay rating for the rip-off artist seller, I for one would shed no tears.

Smivs wrote:

I think after all this time that if Frontier were bothered by us we would know by now, and more 'appropriate' licensing would help to maintain the status quo.

While I agree it stands to reason they know of our existence, we have no way of knowing what could trigger a reaction from them. I'm inclined to believe what's going on is the old pretend-not-to-notice game. As long as they have no "official" knowledge, nothing will continue to happen. But if put in a situation where they they are publicly made aware of Oolite, they may conclude that action needs to be taken to protect their interests.
But hey, I'm only doing the wild guess routine here.

Oolite's license should remain free (as in free software). That will mean that there will always be the freedom to sell the game commercially.

We should not inconvenience Oolite's players more than necessary. The Oolite splashscreen was initially a vanity board (like Chuck Lorre's), shown while Oolite performed start-up tasks, it shouldn't really be much more than that. Using it to point out that Oolite is free won't help people who have already got it.

We should do what we can to let people know that Oolite can and always should be available to download for free. However, this shouldn't preclude other means of distribution including its sale on CD, DVD, BluRay, thargoid-death-crystal or hyperwave radio.

And again. I'm not against Oolite being sold on ebay, in fact I'm for it! I'd just like to see it done right (with an overstuffed Acornsoft-esque box of goodies making up good value for money).


As to OXPs: currently most OXPs use a CC NC-BY-SA license, but I wouldn't want to restrict the choice of OXP authors to use any other form of licensing, from putting their work into the public domain to selling their OXPs commercially.

The important point for OXP authors is to consider how they wish their work to be used, reused and redistributed, and if it matters to them then to license the copyright of their work accordingly.

Ok, creating by committee or by singularity is one thing. But actioning by committee (OR SINGULARITY) is another. Our organism hasn't been evolved to react to unwarranted capitalistic replication, it's evolved to make a good game better.

What we need to do is decide IF we want some "specialist cells" to go "hello" if so, who, what their bounds are; and how loud they can be in their action. I hate to give people bad news, but reaction is necessary even if that reaction is inaction. As a proviso to avoid deadlock, lack of decision is the same as inaction, which is a choice in itself. As we have seen, some of us have already taken action.

Question is; for the survival of the whole, should we be allowed to?

Listen to the people who have the most to loose, the originators, the coders. We are to them as these pirates seem to us (we run fast and loose with other peoples work). Let those who will be left the most bereft by ANY frivolous action and loose the greatest investment, cast the first stone. OR NOT.

I have a minor investment in Oolite, (a small one, a good one but not nearly as big as others or enough to truly matter) So I leave this to those in a better position to judge.

aegidian wrote:

We should do what we can to let people know that Oolite can and always should be available to download for free. However, this shouldn't preclude other means of distribution including its sale on CD, DVD, BluRay, thargoid-death-crystal or hyperwave radio.

As to OXPs: currently most OXPs use a CC NC-BY-SA license, but I wouldn't want to restrict the choice of OXP authors to use any other form of licensing, from putting their work into the public domain to selling their OXPs commercially.

The important point for OXP authors is to consider how they wish their work to be used, reused and redistributed, and if it matters to them then to license the copyright of their work accordingly.

Yes - you have my vote on Oolite being always available to download for free.

OXPs are definitely becoming more part of my setup (thanks Griff, Svengali..)

Frontier already know about FFE D3D (the Russian re-make of First Encounters). They made a comment on their forums to the effect that it would leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth if they cracked down on it.

I'm guessing they feel the same way about Oolite.

Steve wrote:

Frontier already know about FFE D3D (the Russian re-make of First Encounters). They made a comment on their forums to the effect that it would leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth if they cracked down on it.

I'm guessing they feel the same way about Oolite.

I did read that comment and if I remember correctly, Frontier was more or less asked a direct question. I belive it comes down to this.
Projects like Oolite, FFE D3D, JFFE etc. keeps the Elite universe alive, and it keeps devote fans happy. Frontier are currently not actively promoting any games within the Elite universe, however they do have an ambition to do so in the future. For that reason I believe they consider open source / free projects like Oolite, all things considered, to be to their benefit. However, if they feel that their property is exploited commercially, I'm convinced they will do everything in their power to stop that.

aegidian wrote:

I'm not against Oolite being sold on ebay, in fact I'm for it!

This surprises me rather a lot. Could you explain why?

Cheers,

Drew.

A quick trip to Frontier Forum and search for Oolite. They know of it's existance, and for quite some time by the look of it. There are even links to the Wiki and download page.

drew wrote:

aegidian wrote:

I'm not against Oolite being sold on ebay, in fact I'm for it!

This surprises me rather a lot. Could you explain why?

Because it's another way to distribute Oolite.

There are reasons why some people might choose to buy Oolite on ebay. Believe it or not some people can access ebay but can't or won't download software. Other people might like to have a hard copy of their software but have no way of making a hard copy.

It's not like it's competition, nobody here loses any money because a copy gets sold on ebay. The buyer may regret paying for something they could download, but only if that's a valid alternative and something they'd prefer to do.

In the end my goal with Oolite is to have as many people as possible enjoy it. Having another way for people to get it, or become aware of it helps that.

aegidian wrote:

drew wrote:

aegidian wrote:

I'm not against Oolite being sold on ebay, in fact I'm for it!

This surprises me rather a lot. Could you explain why?

Because it's another way to distribute Oolite.

There are reasons why some people might choose to buy Oolite on ebay. Believe it or not some people can access ebay but can't or won't download software. Other people might like to have a hard copy of their software but have no way of making a hard copy.

It's not like it's competition, nobody here loses any money because a copy gets sold on ebay. The buyer may regret paying for something they could download, but only if that's a valid alternative and something they'd prefer to do.

In the end my goal with Oolite is to have as many people as possible enjoy it. Having another way for people to get it, or become aware of it helps that.

Ok, I get that. I assume you mean sold 'at cost' though (or as close to 'at cost' as is reasonable)?

Cheers,

Drew.

drew wrote:

Ok, I get that. I assume you mean sold 'at cost' though (or as close to 'at cost' as is reasonable)?

Cheaper the better, at least making the package worth while. Or, like I said, with a box stuffed to acornsoft-esque value.