Re: The future of Ada is at risk

["I. Levashew" <octagram@bluebottle.com>]

Phaedrus wrote:
> And imagine trying to sell associated expertise for a game!  A new 
> game company might be in a bad position with the current Ada situation, 
> having to choose to make their game GPL (no profits)

There's no any big problem here. Games like Duke Nukem, Quake have their 
source available. It's already happened. But arts, sounds and levelsets 
by no any mean must be free for use and distribution. It is the most 
hard work in game creation. So the vendor still has the control.

I even think GPL game is benefittable. Game players tend to modify their 
game. I saw script compiler for GTA and many mods maid with it. I myself 
slightly tweaked Duke Nukem 3D's .con scripts. Just for fun. Releasing 
game as GPL will allow even more tricks than ever.

Releasing a game as GPL also means that somebody can make another 
levelsets and graphics and sell them instead of yours. Or not to sell. 
There are both free and not so free Total Conversions. OpenQuartz for 
Quake, FreeDoom for Doom are examples of creating free content. Why not? 
  It's not easy to replace everything. It anyway popularizes the 
original game.

 From another point of view one could make GPL game code better. Port it 
to another platform, enable anaglyph, make rendering work on a cluster, etc.

Personally I would like vendors to release GPL games even without 
AdaCore's restrictions.

The hardest part is proprietary physical engines which could not be 
released under GPL. As soon as game does not include such engines 
there's nothing to worry about.