FSF itch app spin-off - Githubissues

shackra commented 8 years ago

Someone, I think maybe was me, asked this for the Desura client as well a couple of years ago (without any success).

The people in the Free Software movement are eager to play games, ya know. And I think adding a couple of features to the Itch app (and the backend as well?) will allow distributing the app directly from the software repository of those distributions that adhere themselves to the Free System Distribution Guidelines.

The request is simple, allow game developers the ability to specify under which license they put their source code in, and the license of their game assets as well. Then allow Distributions packagers to disallow proprietary content with a configuration flag before compiling (?) the client or something that allow the distribution packager make a patch that allows white-listing games by license. This is because free systems distributions cannot provide proprietary software, and even Free Software that provides proprietary software will be blacklisted in a blink, in the current state, the Itch app wouldn't be part of Debian main (that's my guess, I'm not familiar with their rules) or any free system distribution's software repository.

fasterthanlime commented 8 years ago

Gonna address this properly later (in a hurry) but take a look at: https://itch.io/directory

allow game developers the ability to specify under which license they put their source code in, and the license of their game assets as well.

We allow that in edit game, but few people tag it properly (need proper data, @leafo can probably run a query)

shackra commented 8 years ago

Well, this is actually a better answer than what I have seen/got with other projects before! haha.

El lunes 21 de diciembre del 2015 a las 0446 horas, Amos Wenger escribió:

Gonna address this properly later (in a hurry) but take a look at: https://itch.io/directory

We allow that in edit game, but few people tag it properly (need proper data, @leafo can probably run a query)

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/itchio/itch/issues/222#issuecomment-166268532

👋 Pax et bonum. Jorge Araya Navarro https://es.gravatar.com/shackra

fasterthanlime commented 8 years ago

:smiley:

still in a hurry but taking bites off this:

whitelisting games per-license would be pretty easy, once the API returns that — I have to warn you, though, not many good GPL games (yet?)
app doesn't know how to compile games btw, FSF is very much "compile everything from source / no binary blobs", but itch does download binary blobs. Someone could always submit a PR though..
speaking of binary blobs, there is one that the app downloads at setup time (during first login, if it's quick enough): https://github.com/itchio/butler — it's a MIT'd golang app, easy to build from source if one wants to, but atm, itch downloads binaries (built on our CI server: https://ci.itch.ovh/ — which recipes are accessible here: https://github.com/itchio/ci.itch.ovh/blob/master/src/jobs/itch.yml — but I'm sure true zealots won't take our word for it :dragon_face:)
for it to be economically viable for us, it would be ideal if people could still purchase/donate libre games (or tools) via the libre version of our app. if that's not against the guidelines, it'd be real cool
another thing I just thought of: if itch is in debian main, aren't people going to install the libre version & think "uh where are all the games" without thinking of checking our own (non-free) APT repo ?

shackra commented 8 years ago

Well... maybe we can convince the FSF or other organizations working towards Free Software to put prizes and stuff for encouraging developers to develop libre games. Is out of the interests of Itch.io to do something cool to reward those brave game developers that release their games as Free Software? Maybe Itch and the FSF can work together and come up with something (I'll try to ping someone on the FSF and see if they are interest, after all, they bought and liberated The Saga of Ryzom (time to ping the developers of Ryzom and tell them to release the game on Itch.io too, maybe?)).
This is not such an issue, we aren't Gentoo. As long as a game developer complies with the terms of the license he has chose, one of which is making the source code available to the users of his game, there is no problem with itch app providing binaries only.
not an issue neither, haha.
The Free Software movement actually encourages developers to sell their creations: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html so selling libre games is not against anything in the Free Software movement.
Well.. yes? but the kind of people that would install Itch app from Debian main is that that wouldn't be surprised by the current little number of games available for purchase. I would rather be "worried" for Ubuntu and Co. users.

El lunes 21 de diciembre del 2015 a las 1139 horas, Amos Wenger escribió:

:smiley:

still in a hurry but taking bites off this:

whitelisting games per-license would be pretty easy, once the API returns that — I have to warn you, though, not many good GPL games (yet?)

app doesn't know how to compile games btw, FSF is very much "compile everything from source / no binary blobs", but itch does download binary blobs. Someone could always submit a PR though..

speaking of binary blobs, there is one that the app downloads at setup time (during first login, if it's quick enough): https://github.com/itchio/butler — it's a MIT'd golang app, easy to build from source if one wants to, but atm, itch downloads binaries (built on our CI server: https://ci.itch.ovh/ — which recipes are accessible here: https://github.com/itchio/ci.itch.ovh/blob/master/src/jobs/itch.yml — but I'm sure true zealots won't take our word for it :dragon_face:)

for it to be economically viable for us, it would be ideal if people could still purchase/donate libre games (or tools) via the libre version of our app. if that's not against the guidelines, it'd be real cool

another thing I just thought of: if itch is in debian main, aren't people going to install the libre version & think "uh where are all the games" without thinking of checking our own (non-free) APT repo ?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/itchio/itch/issues/222#issuecomment-166369585

👋 Pax et bonum. Jorge Araya Navarro https://es.gravatar.com/shackra

fasterthanlime commented 8 years ago

Alright, then it all sounds good to me!

Can you open separate issues for every step we'd need to take for that, as we learn about them? I'll add them to the libre milestone I just created, so that we can track overall progress on this goal.

FSF people are, of course, welcome to join the discussion. As a teen, I used to be an ardent supporter of the cause (before I started having to test things for all 3 major operating systems!), I'd be really happy to give back to the community. :+1:

pizzamaker commented 8 years ago

I'm very happy that Itch is taking this pro-user stance :)

For the whitelist, you can check out https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html to see which licenses are considered free by the FSF.

shackra commented 8 years ago

In my mind, the white listing should be done by packager maintainers but through a facility enabled by Itch devs

El 21 de diciembre de 2015 15:17:32 CST, pizzaiolo notifications@github.com escribió:

I'm very happy that Itch is taking this pro-user stance :)

For the whitelist, you can check out https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html to see which licenses are considered free by the FSF.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/itchio/itch/issues/222#issuecomment-166426330

Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

fasterthanlime commented 8 years ago

@shackra the itch app could have a command-line argument --only-free, or something like that, and debian's launcher script in /usr/bin/itch would pass that command-line argument

shackra commented 8 years ago

Merry Christmas!

I'm not quite sure, when we deblob software from traces of proprietary software we do a complete patching, i.e.: Iceweasel add-on repository don't point to Mozilla's but to this wiki page https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/IceCat.

if there were a flag as --only-free it have to be on by default inside the source code of Itch app, not sure if Itch app source code currently allows such feat to package maintainers.

El lunes 21 de diciembre del 2015 a las 1814 horas, Amos Wenger escribió:

@shackra the itch app could have a command-line argument --only-free, or something like that, and debian's launcher script in /usr/bin/itch would pass that command-line argument

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/itchio/itch/issues/222#issuecomment-166464365

👋 Pax et bonum. Jorge Araya Navarro https://es.gravatar.com/shackra

shackra commented 8 years ago

Hello! Sorry for the late reply!!

I send an email to the FSF exposing this proposal and the willingness of the developers to bring a FSDG-compatible desktop app of itch for those libre GNU/Linux distributions out there.

I hope some representative of the Free Softwrae Foundation send you an email or comment this issue :smile:

shackra commented 8 years ago

So, they reply!

We would be happy to answer questions they might have and provide information. Please have them contact us if they are interested. Thank you.

Please send an email to licensing@fsf.org :D

aaronfranke commented 5 years ago

Has there been any progress on this? A "FOSS-only" Itch client would be cool.

shackra commented 5 years ago

El martes 20 de noviembre del 2018 a las 2218 horas, Aaron Franke escribió:

Has there been any progress on this? A "FOSS-only" Itch client would be cool.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

Nothing, so far.

👋 Pax et bonum. Jorge Javier Araya Navarro http://www.esavara.cr

marek22k commented 1 year ago

Hello, I have a question about this topic: Is there a plan to publish the Itch Store in the Debian package sources?

shackra commented 1 year ago

Hello, I have a question about this topic: Is there a plan to publish the Itch Store in the Debian package sources?

isn't that something for the Debian mailing list, tho?

marek22k commented 1 year ago

Well, the request to appear at the Debian package sources should come from itch.io itself, right? Hence my question here and not on the Mailling list. Or is there an itch.io Debian Mailling list?

itchio / itch

FSF itch app spin-off #222

Nothing, so far.