Ryzom source released as free software

[Posted May 6, 2010 by corbet]

Back in 2008, LWN covered the story of Ryzom, a popular multiplayer role-playing game which was owned by a company in bankruptcy. An attempt to acquire and liberate the source at that time failed, but good things come (sometimes) to those who wait: Ryzom is now available under the AGPLv3 license. The artwork, too, is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. "By freeing Ryzom code, Winch Gate is transforming the MMORPG marketplace and is setting a precedent for how gaming software should evolve--in freedom. The source code released totals over two (2) million lines of source code and over 20,000 high quality textures and thousands of 3D objects."

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 13:37 UTC (Thu) by realnc (guest, #60393) [Link] (21 responses)

Yeah sure, very open source friendly:

"If you want to run your own server for the game, you have the software to do that, but you won't really have any world datainformation about geography, special places, characters, quests, items, and so onto run it with. Winch Gate Properties, the company that currently holds the copyright for all game materials and runs the official server, has decided not to release that data, to avoid causing disruption for their current player community. People who want to run their own server will need to develop their own world to do soonly a small test world comes with the code."

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 14:08 UTC (Thu) by hmh (subscriber, #3838) [Link]

Looks very, very FLOSS-friendly to me.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 14:19 UTC (Thu) by RCL (guest, #63264) [Link]

Data is not the "source" :-)

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 14:20 UTC (Thu) by sharms (guest, #57357) [Link] (16 responses)

How is that not open source friendly? You get all of the code, all of the art assets, they simply ask you make your own map / story.

Your assertion is asinine.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 15:17 UTC (Thu) by realnc (guest, #60393) [Link] (15 responses)

Yeah sure. This isn't counter-strike. Doing a world on your own is impossible. Go ahead, make one.

What this company is trying to do is exploiting. People are welcome to fix their bugs, but they're not welcome to run their own worlds.

It not "open source" friendly by any stretch of the imagination. It's just a cheap trick.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 15:22 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

If others will not set up servers, the company will get much fewer bug reports and patches.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 15:25 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

I'm at least totally supportive of free software game engines and both free and proprietary data files. One would get the benefits of free software portability and maintainability while keeping the business model of offering the actual game experience as data files needing a pay license.

On top of that, it certainly can't be "impossible" to create alternative worlds. This is the start point where community can start planning and building such, at least after the Blender stuff is first developed. Thousands of 3D objects sound like readily available building blocks as well.

Running own worlds on own servers is exactly possible, so I don't understand your claim(s). Others can also build a business of their own around the project, like creating own world data sets.

Worlds

Posted May 6, 2010 15:37 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

I've always found it annoying that the PostgreSQL folks don't supply a fully-populated database with their code, meaning that I have to do my own. Life would be so much easier otherwise!

It might be nice to have a complete game that works out of the box. But having the software and a big pile of artwork seems highly valuable. That should be enough to enable a lot of people who are not programmers to make interesting worlds of their own. I'm not a gamer, but I'm looking forward to seeing what the community comes up with. Without having actually looked at the code, I can only say that this seems like a worthwhile contribution; dissing the whole thing because we didn't get a pony too seems excessive.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 15:48 UTC (Thu) by RCL (guest, #63264) [Link] (7 responses)

That's ridiculous. "Open source" does not mean that you should give out everything you did for free. Even "free software" doesn't mean this.

You open your code either because you believe you will increase its quality by inviting more developers to work on it or because you believe in FSF freedoms that users of your programs can tinker with it. That's it.

According to your definition, neither Red Hat, nor Mozilla, nor id Software (with its Quake) aren't "open source friendly".

That's intellectual communism.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 16:12 UTC (Thu) by realnc (guest, #60393) [Link] (6 responses)

You need to ask yourself "what IS Ryzom?" Surely, it can't be only the code and artwork, right? Isn't its virtual world part of it? Or perhaps isn't it the most important part of it even? So please tell me, how is Ryzom open source now? I can't even GET Ryzom!

What they did is provide an open source engine for you to implement your own MMORPG. Props to them for that. But there are enough other such engines out there, this is nothing special. But they did not open source Ryzom itself. And they shouldn't claim that they did.

I hope my point is more obvious now.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 16:21 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (2 responses)

You obviously don't understand what FOSS means. This is a great grant and there is absolutely no reason why they would need to provide the "world". Constructing the map could be as easy as getting in worldcraft and building the layout using the artwork and shape files. The code to use and build the system is openly available.

Seriously, are you deliberately spreading FUD or what?

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 17:19 UTC (Thu) by realnc (guest, #60393) [Link] (1 responses)

"Constructing the map could be as easy as getting in worldcraft and building the layout using the artwork and shape files."

You don't know much about Ryzom and MMORPGs, do you? No, I didn't think so. Doing what you suggest would take years. And when you finally do it, you won't have Ryzom. You will have a Ryzom *clone*. And probably not a perfect re-creation of Ryzom anyway.

Yeah, Ryzom is now free. Not! Ryzom is NOT free. It's engine is. The game itself is not. How difficult is this for you to understand? If Ryzom were free, I would not need to spend 5 years to recreate Ryzom.

Also, the term FUD seems to be used quite liberally here. Perhaps you should first grasp what I'm saying before resorting to accusations of malevolent objectives.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 7, 2010 11:47 UTC (Fri) by sorpigal (guest, #36106) [Link]

What is "Ryzom"?

Is it a 3D engine? Is it the system of character and skill development? Is it a game client? Is it a set of maps? Is it a set of graphics?

You're saying it is intrinsically all of these things but I don't think it's dishonest to say that it isn't. In some sense "Ryzom" is in fact open source. The maps aren't, but that's okay.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 16:34 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

In the sense you mean, Ryzom can't be distributed at all. There can only be one Ryzom-the-virtual-world (I'm making some assumptions here about the server structure because authoritative sources appear to be slashdotted or otherwise offline) which includes all the players and their current state and so on - and it can't be "released as free software". So obviously that can't be what people mean.

Generally when someone says something and your first attempt to parse their utterance is nonsensical you should try again. If I say "I have all the James Bond cars, I keep them in a shoebox" this rule allows you to strike out the possibility that I literally own all the cars from the James Bond movies, that they are small enough to fit in a shoebox, that I believe I inhabit a fictional universe etc. and reach the conclusion that I am speaking of toy or scale model cars. It's a helpful technique - and you won't find yourself so often arguing vociferously about nothing.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 17:17 UTC (Thu) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link]

These communities build worlds fast. Just you wait. And yeah, read about FOSS. You don't get it.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 7, 2010 8:40 UTC (Fri) by ctg (guest, #3459) [Link]

Yeah. It's just like wicked Google developing their Android platform, but not giving me a phone to run it on. What is the point of the software without the phone?

It's completely against the spirit of having my cake and eat it, something for nothing, a great big free lunch, freeloading etc.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 23:20 UTC (Thu) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link]

It's just like the old MUD games. I used to play and code Diku MUDs quite a bit.

You got the code and a default world file of about 16 rooms. Nobody gave away their world files.

Lots of people set up a basic MUD but hardly anyone joined to play those. Only the teams that put a lot of work into their worlds got players.

I just looked up two of my favorites. Arctic MUD and MUME are *still* going.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 7, 2010 2:01 UTC (Fri) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link]

You seem to confuse libre with gratis

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 7, 2010 2:06 UTC (Fri) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link] (1 responses)

If only all companies would choose to exploit me thusly by releasing their source code.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 7, 2010 6:47 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Hell ya!

Anyways....

What is the point of setting up your own server and your own worlds when your just going to set up the same thing that is already done? Seems like a boring thing to do in my eyes.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 7, 2010 23:05 UTC (Fri) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]

If you're upset about the lack of open source maps, why not help out the project instead of complaining?

There is always more work to do. You haven't done anything at all, yet you're complaining that the people who "only" open sourced the entire codebase should do more.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 13, 2010 9:58 UTC (Thu) by Lovechild (guest, #3592) [Link]

To be honest, as a long time game master and allround roleplaying geek, I do think I would prefer crafting a world from scratch to adopting one that is already deployed. Aside ensuring that the existing players are not disturbed it allows for a story telling experience with fewer surprises.

I have been doing the same basic thing for pen and paper games for years, it would be fun to translate some of that to a community project that defines a unique, believable world for players to interact with.

Mostly I think it would be fun because we get to create something unique and wonderful. Something better.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 6, 2010 13:47 UTC (Thu) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link]

Brett Smith from the FSF has written an article "Ryzom is free software! What can we do from here?" http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/ryzom-free-software

Since we're expecting people to have a lot of interest in this release, we wanted to provide some detailed information up-front about exactly what has and has not been released, and suggestions for ways developers can contribute to the project effectively.
[...]
People who want to run their own server will need to develop their own world to do soonly a small test world comes with the code.

Unfortunately, that development can't be done with free software, because most of the world creation process depends on proprietary 3-D modeling software. Work is already underway to eliminate those dependencies and use free software alternatives like Blender. This is the next big task that needs to be done to make Ryzom even more useful to the free software community, so if you'd like to help, please see the project page for more information.

Ryzom source released as free software

Posted May 7, 2010 18:49 UTC (Fri) by wingo (guest, #26929) [Link]

How does that work? The AGPL and CC-BY-SA are incompatible. Is it not considered linking for an AGPL program to use a CC-BY-SA texture?

Hither the turgid text: "A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an aggregate if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.".

So I suppose the question is: does a program using textures constitute a "larger program" or not?