Steamworks SDK / Steam Distribution

[codemasher]

On another note I wonder if it would be possible to sidestep the whole licensing issue by having a separate launcher / interceptor app that communicates with Discord. One could probably just look at the unencrypted Quake 3 network packets with libpcap

Which makes me wonder if we could sidestep the Steamworks SDK licensing issue in the same way.

[...] decide that what the Steamworks SDK does is just a communication with a service that does not invoke the copyleft requirement of the GPL.

Originally posted by @codemasher in https://github.com/PadWorld-Entertainment/worldofpadman/issues/10#issuecomment-817392539

[codemasher]

This raises a couple questions, such as:

• If we'd create a launcher under a separate license, such as MIT and that integrates Steamworks, would it still be ok to distribute the WoP files alongside it via Steam, or would it have to download the files from a 3rd party source?
• If we'd need to distribute the files via 3rd party, where would we host these files reliably and future proof (same issue as with the integrated auto update)? Would it even be worth only for it to have it on Steam? (in which case itch.io might be the better soloution, might as well also check out humble)

[robo9k]

Something like https://hg.icculus.org/icculus/steamshim/file/f3c91a09913c/README.txt might be of interest