Yeah, it definitely is more appealing from a marketing perspective.

I do understand why some projects might wanna use the term, it’s to their advantage to be associated with “open source” even if the source code itself has a proprietary license.

The problem is that then it makes it harder / more confusing to check for actually openly licensed code, since then it’s not clear what term to use. Already “free software” can be confused with “free as in free beer”.

That discussion concluded essentially the same thing I said: that both the OSI and the FSF have essentially the same conditions and that “merely having the source available is not enough to meet what the OSD defines as open source” (sic).

Don’t police perfectly innocent and common use of language please.

Using “open source” for all kinds of source, regardless of how restrictive its license is, is definitely not a common use of the term.

People aren’t gonna start using “open source” like that just because a few people find it more convenient for the marketing of their projects. To me it sounds like they are the ones policing to push for a particular language standard against what people commonly use, which is what makes language prescriptive, instead of descriptive.

I guess it’s better than not providing any source code. What’s wrong is calling it “open source” when it isn’t.

VVVVVV and Anodyne are some examples of “source available” games.

According to the definition from the Open Source Initiative, “open source” also requires free redistribution. See the first point (emphasis mine).

1. Free Redistribution

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

It also requires freedom to distribute modifications:

3. Derived Works

The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

CC-BY-NC-ND is not “open source” (both due to the NC and the ND), it’s more of a “source available” type of license (when applied to source code). The difference between “free software” and “open source” is more ideological than anything else, they both define the same freedoms, just with different ideological objectives / goals.

I think that was already done a while ago with Swanstation libretro core.

That’s ok if we are talking about malware publicly shown in the published source code… but there’s also the possibility of a private source-code patch with malware that it’s secretly being applied when building the binaries for distribution. Having clean source code in the repo is not a guarantee that the source code is the same that was used to produce the binaries.

This is why it’s important for builds to be reproducible, any third party should be able to build their own binary from clean source code and be able to obtain the exact same binary with the same hash. If the hashes match, then you have a proof of the binary being clean. You have this same problem with every single binary distribution, even the ones that don’t include pre-compiled binaries in their repo.

Also I expect there should be more surveillance around powerful people like Larry Ellison, right?

The more powerful, the more important is to ensure good behavior, and the more public / peer-reviewed the AI model and its logs should be to avoid tampering/laundering.

True. Though I don’t think we would be in a hurry for this one, both Mindustry and Shapez have similar concepts and are already open source and quite good.

My worry is that the other 20% might actually come from other forms of partnerships and integrations not unlike what they probably had in mind with this, and that dropping Google might actually make them more dependent on seeking this kind of initiatives, not less.

I don’t know how many people you actually need to maintain a browser. But if it’s actually possible to do it without any kind of money from any of those sources in a way that can be sustained, then it would make more sense to make a fork (or alternative, like Ladybird) and just use that.

Like I said, I think it’s too late for Mozilla to shift course, I don’t expect they’ll ever do that. At least not until they are forced by a competing project if it happens to become successful (or a similar huge wake up call that leaves them no alternative).

Where would the money come from then? donations? Or do you mean they should shrink, fire people and downscale.

I think it’s too late for them to switch direction, not without a lot of people getting laid off. Though maybe that will ultimately happen if they finally end up bankrupt.

Is “intent” what makes all the difference? I think doing something bad unintentionally does not make it good, right?

Otherwise, all I need to do something bad is have no bad intentions. I’m sure you can find good intentions for almost any action, but generally, the end does not justify the means.

I’m not saying that those who act unintentionally should be given the same kind of punishment as those who do it with premeditation… what I’m saying is that if something is bad we should try to prevent it in the same level, as opposed to simply allowing it or sometimes even encourage it. And this can be done in the same way regardless of what tools are used. I think we just need to define more clearly what separates “bad” from “good” specifically based on the action taken (as opposed to the tools the actor used).

I think that’s the difference right there.

One is up for debate, the other one is already heavily regulated currently. Libraries are generally required to have consent if they are making straight copies of copyrighted works. Whether we like it or not.

What AI does is not really a straight up copy, which is why it’s fuzzy, and much harder to regulate without stepping in our own toes, specially as tech advances and the difference between a human reading something and a machine doing it becomes harder and harder to detect.

Yes, I don’t think it’s just about the execution of Win32 code, but also the possibility of MS using marketing techniques and dirty manipulation methods to give themselves advantages within the Windows platform to sway the general public to their store in a similar manner as how they push their browser, their MS Teams communication platform, their One Drive Cloud Storage, their search engine, their data-collection tech, their assistant, etc.

Content curated by “the core geeks and nerds” might appeal to “geeks and nerds”, not to those consumers.

They want “consumer” content. And if one day they get tired of it then I doubt any amount of “steak” would have stopped them leaving anyway, since that was never what they were looking for. It’s not like reddit has to be the only place they visit in the internet, nor is the internet their only source of consumption. Just because you go to a snack bar does not mean that’s the only place you go for meals.

If you are into open source, give Remnants of the precursors a try, it’s a modern spiritual successor of the oldie Master of Orion.

Which is why you should only care about the personal opinion of those people when it actually relates to that reliability.

I don’t care whether Linus Torvalds likes disrespecting whichever company or people he might want to give the middle finger to, or throw rants in the mailing list or mastodon to attack any particular individual, so long as he continues doing a good job maintaining the kernel and accepting contributions from those same people when they provide quality code, regardless of whatever feelings he might have about whatever opinions they might hold.

You rely on the performance of the software, the clarity of the docs, the efficiency of their bug tracking… but the opinions of the people running those things don’t matter so long as they keep being reliable.

I have contributed to other projects without really needing to get involved in their community in any personal/parasocial level, though.

I just make a pull request and when the code was good it was accepted, when not it got rejected. Sometimes I’ve had to make changes before it getting merged, but I had no need to engage in discussions on discord or anything like that. I’ve been in some mailing lists to keep track on some projects, but never really engaged deeply, specially if it goes off-topic.

If I find that a good code contribution is rejected for whatever toxic reason, then the consequence of that is the code would stop being as good as it could have (because of the contributions being rejected/slowed down), so it’s then that forking might be in order. Of course the code matters.

To his point: if not “discuss”, what is the correct approach against fascism? war and murder? dismiss it, try to “cancel it” without giving any arguments so it can continue to fester on its own and keep growing in opposition?

To me, fascism is a stupid position that doesn’t make much sense, to the point that it falls on itself the moment you “discuss” it.

I would have expected that it would be the fascists the ones unable/unwilling to discuss their position, since it’s the least rational one. So it’s certainly very jarring whenever I hear people jumping to defend against fascism while at the same time stopping in their tracks when it comes to discussing it. Even if those unable to reason might not be convinced by our arguments, anyone with reason would. Rejecting discussion does a disservice, because it does put off those willing to listen and strengthens those who didn’t really want an argument anyway.

Like flat-earthers, they should be challenged with reason, with discussion. Not dismissed as if it were true that there’s a huge conspiracy against them. Whether they listen or not to that reason, dehumanizing them and rejecting civil and rational discourse would play in favor of their movement.

Stating “genocide is bad” should NOT be a statement of faith. Faith is the shakiest of the grounds, if we are unable to articulate the specific reasons that make genocide be bad, then we are condemned to see it repeat itself. So, I’d argue it’s for the sake of the victims in Auschwitz that antifascism should not be turned into a religion, but into a solid and rational position that’s not distorted nor used willy-nilly.

The average Windows user would easily be put off by the project if they tried it this early. I feel it’d actually be better if they don’t release on Windows until they are ready. That way they can get better press when it finally releases on Windows.

To each their own. For me, a good lore and dialog is what makes a good RPG stand out.

If I want action and reflexes, I’d go play an action game. If I want strategy, I’d go for a puzzle game, or a 4X, deckbuilder, etc. But in a proper RPG what I look for is good lore, engaging story and some level of freedom that makes me feel I’m having an impact in that world. If AI can help with immersion and/or dynamic changes, I’m all for it. Of course, for that to happen they need to make sure it does stay in character and does not hallucinate something incoherent.

If there’s an AI chatbox that actually can stay coherent and be set up as a game without feeling like you have to input too many instructions to the AI to push the narrative (I think AI Dungeon gets close) then well, you could almost consider that being an RPG already. After all, the first RPGs were all text based. So I would already consider that the first iteration of AI-based RPG game. But translating that to a live 3D environment would be the next step.