Id Software and Valve violating GPLs!

[Gargantou]

Hello, I just bought Wolfenstein 3D from Steam, and it came to my attention they're using DOSBox to play the game, now here's the deal, they've removed all help and config files, and any credit given to the DOSBox Team, they've also removed the GPL(General Public License), thus as fas as I know violating actual law.

I think this is a very poor thing to do, especially from a company like Valve and iD whom have been along so long, to use other peoples programs and not even give credit, not to mention violate the team by removing the GPL.

Now I'm thinking about posting this to the team if it hasn't come attention to them already.

I just wanted to post it here because I thought people should know that iD and Valve are together taking advantage of other peoples work without even giving them credit.

[bbson john]

We don't give credit to people from whom we stole work. We are birds of a feather so we don't care.











Joking, sue'em.

[Jintor]

Tell 'em first and see what happens.

But first seed the information all across the internets so everyone knows and you have a backup plan.

[L3adCannon]

Do I really care when I play the game? no

I`m sure some people do.

[Barnz]

Another evidence to destroy Valve.

[Tick]

oh god Valve must be the devil

[Gargantou]

Originally Posted by L3adCannon

Do I really care when I play the game? no

I`m sure some people do.

Please gtfo my thread kiddo.

You're obviously totally missing the point, this has nothing to do with caring when you play the game, this is about them taking other peoples work and violtaing an actual GPL license, i.e. basically they're taking another persons work and using it for their own profit and telling the creators to "**** off".

[Pi Mu Rho]

Is it not more likely that they bought some kind of license?

[Steve]

Seriously, do you think that a company with so much invested in the independent software development sector as Valve would just blatantly strip someone of credit that way?

[Gargantou]

Originally Posted by Pi Mu Rho

Is it not more likely that they bought some kind of license?

Nope, DOSBox creators themselves have on the official DOSBox forum in a thread regarding this stated that they were not in any way informed nor contacted by either Valve or iD regarding the usage off DOSBox on Steam, and they've also stated that files that aren't allowed to be removed according to the GPL license, such as COPYING.TXT(Which specifically relates to the usage of DOSBox with other software packages etc), thus violating the GPL license.

And Steve, I guess you're right, Valve's probably not to blame, this is probably iDs doing, but I do still feel that Valve should have checked this out before approving these games for distribution via Steam, because this definitely does not reflect upon them well in my opinion.

[Jintor]

You've informed them, right?

[Gargantou]

Yup, posted on the official Steam forums, if someone has a mail they suggest me to use I will gladly do that too.

[Kyorisu]

It was a very bad move by either ID or Valve and hopefully they'll remedy the situation quickly. Credit needs to be given to the dosbox guys. Thanks to dosbox I can play all the old TES games and a whole bunch of other awesome titles without having to use a dedicated VM or pull out and old Win 98 box.

Also I read the setup files have been removed? So basically your not even buying the full product, what a rip.

[Gargantou]

Correct Kyo, Setup files for the actual games have been removed.

[Kadayi]

Why not contact ID SfB, they probably adapted the stuff themselves for the Steam release.

I love the way to resolve something is apparently to ask everyone not to buy a game, rather than do the smart thing of contacting the parties involved, and finding out what really happened.