Cory Doctorow is a man from Canada who is interested in writing. He is a blogger, journalist and writer (science fiction). He is the one who believes that copyright laws should be liberalized - to allow free sharing of all digital media.
I was quite surprised when I noticed that he has been dropped out from 4 universities without attaining any degree. Was he the bird with passage or he just didn't feel that these were the right programs to him .. ?
But he have had more time to do what he liked - writing. Fascinating is that at the same time he published his books ('Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom', 'A Place So Foreign and Eight More',..) in printed version he released electronic version. The only principle was that users were able to circulate the edition as long as they neither made money from it nor used it to create derived works.
I think it was useful in its own way. There are people who like to read books from paper and there are people who doesn't mind reading it from the computer.
If a writer will release his(her work in both - digital media and on paper - then there is also twice as much chance to get more familiar to people. Which leads to the fact that if one books is good, people will definately be ready to buy next book that comes out. They know what they will get.
So I think that he is smart in its own way by doing so.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The review of blue team's version
So, I start with testing another team game. As I have already heard that there have been some problems to get files working, I know what to do. I corrected their _main.cfg file by replacing ’data/campaigns/The_Cafeteria’ with ’ data/add-ons/The_Cafeteria’ and ’@campaigns’ with ’~add-ons’.
I am using version 1.6.5 to test it.
The cafeteria is a campaign about the economical fight. Who has better things to offer and more clients and more Money!
I started and chose 'Normal' version of the game:
And I get error: ’Tundmatu stsenaarium: ’01_scenarion’.
It seems that the game is not working in version 1.6.5. I asked others how could I get the game to work. They said that it is working with version 1.7. I tried with it, but the error message was the same.
So I tried again with 1.6.5 - I uninstalled it and then installed it again. It seems that I am able to play it, as now I even see the pictures they have added to their campaign, but after choosing the level I received:
As I have heard that some people managed to play few levels of the game, then maybe there is something wrong in my computer settings, cause source code is same for everybody.
So I started to surf in their catalogue to find maps and pictures and code files.
I have to say I liked the background map idea - like Estonia, and instead of water there is a cafeteria table with cups and cigarettes. Nice idea.
Characters seem to be nicely picked as well - tough (like mafia people).
I am sure that they have seen a lot of effort in creating this campaign, but I am just not able to play it by myself.
I am using version 1.6.5 to test it.
The cafeteria is a campaign about the economical fight. Who has better things to offer and more clients and more Money!
I started and chose 'Normal' version of the game:
And I get error: ’Tundmatu stsenaarium: ’01_scenarion’.
It seems that the game is not working in version 1.6.5. I asked others how could I get the game to work. They said that it is working with version 1.7. I tried with it, but the error message was the same.
So I tried again with 1.6.5 - I uninstalled it and then installed it again. It seems that I am able to play it, as now I even see the pictures they have added to their campaign, but after choosing the level I received:
As I have heard that some people managed to play few levels of the game, then maybe there is something wrong in my computer settings, cause source code is same for everybody.
So I started to surf in their catalogue to find maps and pictures and code files.
I have to say I liked the background map idea - like Estonia, and instead of water there is a cafeteria table with cups and cigarettes. Nice idea.
Characters seem to be nicely picked as well - tough (like mafia people).
I am sure that they have seen a lot of effort in creating this campaign, but I am just not able to play it by myself.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Copyleft
We are living in the world where everything has its price and everything has its rights. What can be done with one thing, can't be done with another. To restrict the rights of services or products or etc.. society uses laws and restrictions - one of them is Copyright. Copyright is a set of rights which are granted to the author or creator of an original work. It includes the right to copy, distribute and adapt, so the author has full control over his/her work. For example intellectual property, patents, trademarks..
The opposite of copyright is copyleft which is also known as ShareAlike in creative commons. It sounds like game with words and it is.
Copyleft's goal is to use copyright to remove the rights of piece of work that come by default from the law. To remove the restrictions to copy, distribute or adapt it. But it has its catch - the same rights has to have the work which source has copyleft rights which means that all derived works must be distributed under the same terms as the original work.
It can be said that copyright can be strong, weak or neither of them.
Weak copyleft licenses are used to create for example software libraries, like Mozilla Public License. Weak means that only some of the derivative work needs to be distributed under a copyleft license.
Strong copyleft forbids linking the subject work into larger works or projects that are not licensed with a compatible copyleft terms. For example GPL.
The opposite of copyright is copyleft which is also known as ShareAlike in creative commons. It sounds like game with words and it is.
Copyleft's goal is to use copyright to remove the rights of piece of work that come by default from the law. To remove the restrictions to copy, distribute or adapt it. But it has its catch - the same rights has to have the work which source has copyleft rights which means that all derived works must be distributed under the same terms as the original work.
It can be said that copyright can be strong, weak or neither of them.
Weak copyleft licenses are used to create for example software libraries, like Mozilla Public License. Weak means that only some of the derivative work needs to be distributed under a copyleft license.
Strong copyleft forbids linking the subject work into larger works or projects that are not licensed with a compatible copyleft terms. For example GPL.
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