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   Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Monday, 21-Nov-2022 12:37:39 JST Alexandre Oliva

   in reply to

   • CyberSpook??
   I wouldn't say games are in between, but that they are part software and part art. software, like everything else that does a practical job, brings in the reasoning that justifies requiring the four essential freedoms. the art in a game, though irreplaceable as art, do not involve the same moral and philosophical issues, so the imperative of the four freedoms does not apply to them. as far as the practical job is concerned, the art is generally replaceable. consider for example gcompris' puzzles made of famous paintings. nevermind that the paintings are in the public domain. if they were under copyright, as long as they were redistributable, it would not be unethical under the FS philosophy to bundle it with the puzzle software. furthermore, one could still fully enjoy the essential freedoms when it comes to the practical job of allowing users to solve puzzles, though for some kinds of changes one might want to make, one might have to replace the artwork with different artwork. this is my understanding of how FS philosophy applies to (software + art) games. whether they are emulated is irrelevant under this light, assuming the emulator does not amount to means to take away users' freedom.
   
   I don't know what you mean by "game launcher". I'm used to installing and playing games that ship with distros.
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     CyberSpook?? (cyberspook@soc.redeyes.site)'s status on Monday, 21-Nov-2022 12:37:40 JST CyberSpook??
     @lxo I was thinking about video games lately. They are a special case because they are both software and art. Certainly software is interchangeable but art, if we are to agree with sir Proudhon and Mr. Stallman, is an irreplaceable piece of beauty valuable in itself. Now, video games are neither just software nor just art, instead being in-between. The engine and the game genre are clearly the mechanistic parts, the artstyle, the universe and the characters are unique and hard to replace and the gameplay mechanics and level design require creativity but have very discernable patterns unless the game is eclectic or experimental. Art, aside from that pesky copyright system, isn't harmful. But proprietary software can be malware. I wonder: how should we approach proprietary games? What about emulated games?
     
     I think that if there were lots of libre games of many genres available of good quality, proprietary games would be a "worthy sacrifice." Another suggestion for the popularization of libre games would be having one libre game launcher. I saw such project somewhere. Forgot its name. Oh, and obviously, MORE HIGH-QUALITY LIBRE GAMES TO DISTRO REPOS. There is nothing simpler than installing a game with your package manager of choice.