Doom's Knight

[Clonehunter]

Okay, maybe this would be better for a different board, but seeing this is somewhat Doom related, thought I'd share it. I guess Doom's Knight has been around for a while, though I first found it a few days ago, and it wasn't around back when Hell on Earth was around. And HoE was one thing, more or less porting Freedoom to apple devices and charging 4.99USD, but Christ, FreeDoom resources and Oblige maps for 4.99? What the hell? Now pointed out before in other threads I guess this is legal in some way, but this is just so fucking lazy. Sorry if this is the wrong board for this, and odds are, I'm sure most of you probably know of this already, though I feel it's not exactly as popular as Hell on Earth.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dooms-knight/id412364796?mt=8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWcMlknuHaY

http://www.appup.com/app-details/doom~27s-knight

[Orangestar]

Isn't that only legal if they have that little text file for copying Freedoom's stuff?

[GreyGhost]

Meh, the same "publisher" is also offering Doomed Heretic for Windows.

[Clonehunter]

GreyGhost said:

Meh, the same "publisher" is also offering Doomed Heretic for Windows.

Wow, it's Doom's Knight very own level set with JDoom features. Funny seeing the same thing is for sale where the only change is a name. Alas Freedoom can develop of history of sorts other than development.

[fraggle]

I think it's about time we had something like an FAQ thread about this subject. This must be something like the fifth thread I've seen like this.

EDIT: I've written an FAQ thread. Hopefully this clarifies the situation somewhat. Let me know if you think there's anything missing.

The best thing to do in this situation is to provide a similar package and make it available for free. I'd love to see an organised effort to do something like this for the various app stores that have appeared over the past few years. It would be great to see an organised effort to get Freedoom made available on more devices / app stores.

[GreyGhost]

A free Freedoom on the app stores would be nice. In the meantime I'd like to see one of these bottom feeders release "Doomed Space Marine", just to see how determined Games Workshop are to protect their trademark. :)

[Clonehunter]

fraggle said:

FAQ

That was probably a good move, though in some time I guess it'd need to be seen at the top of the page, stickied or whatnot.


But what I don't know is the ability to sell a repackaged Freedoom set with generated levels? Is that legal? Well, I guess there isn't much saying no, that's more of an idgames rule to not submit those things. I dunno.

[fraggle]

I'd assume generated levels are copyright free because they don't really have an author.

[andrewj]

fraggle said:

I'd assume generated levels are copyright free because they don't really have an author.

While I mostly agree, I think some of the prefabs used to generate a level could be copyrightable, especially when it's the size of a whole room.

[Gez]

If you can use IP laws to claim ownership of "rectangle with rounded angles", you can most certainly copyright a prefab!

Then it depends on the license that applies to the prefab. Presumably, they're under the same license as the generator that uses them.

[andrewj]

I hadn't considered what the license of the prefabs should be (or other materials, like Oblige logos).

If I thought it would ever be an issue, I would place these things under a zlib-style license.