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Author Topic: Stardock Litigation Discussion  (Read 167234 times)
Shiver
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #615 on: June 12, 2019, 06:11:28 pm »

The source code for those two don't exist anymore, well, at least for SC1.
Brad says he still hasn't been able to find the source code for SC3 and it's looking like it also may have been lost.

Alas, the long-form of 'Daktaklakpak' may never be known.
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Narsham
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #616 on: June 12, 2019, 08:17:52 pm »

Paul and Fred agree not to sue, if Stardock can stand by their promise, and allow P&F to review Stardock's game and DLC to make sure they keep their word.

Brad says that effectively means that P&F will give SC:O their seal of approval, and are effectively consultants on the project.

Paul and Fred shuffle around uncomfortably. But have no other substantial objections.

And that creates the license: Stardock pays P&F a small licensing fee. Stardock can include precursors, observers, and info-brokers, and other superficial similarities between aliens and lore (Rainbow Worlds, Tzo Crystals, dimensions "above" and "below", SC2-style hyperspace, Commander Hayes, etc.).

Stardock throws Paul and Fred in the credits for SCO, and pushes it to every media outlet that will mention it.[/i]

Just quoting myself here and giving myself a pat on the back, and also pointing out the second last statement where I missed the real solutoin. It doesn't seem that Stardock gets some SC2 races. It seems Stardock, instead, gets Paul to fully consult on the creation of new races.

Stardock begged Paul and Fred to work with stardock for years, then sued P&F, until P&F offered to work with Stardock. It's a pretty shitty tactic that it succeeded.

Contribute a few races does not equal "fully consult" and I'm not sure where you're getting that from. It's interesting to observe the people, who, in the aftermath of a settlement which stresses that it isn't about "winners and losers" at all (and frames the lawsuit as lose-lose in the first place), want to assess who "won."

Brad's claim was total control of the Star Control franchise, all three original games and their IP included. P & F offered a settlement almost exactly like this one and were refused. It is outright bizarre to insist that because Brad gets something out of this settlement, he somehow "won" or got everything he wanted. Brad lost a lot of good will in the broader SC/UQM community, some amount of SC: O sales, and however much money he put into this lawsuit, plus all the time required by discovery. In exchange he got to have a few conversations with P & F and a buddy-buddy meeting at E3, plus just enough of Paul's imprimatur on SC:O to undo some of the damage.

I don't think Paul was forced to make certain concessions (like praising SC:O as a game), I think he chose to do that. He's an injured party and spent plenty of money as part of this suit. If he's willing to forgive and forget, I don't see doing the same as incompatible with supporting P & F or as outright support for Brad.
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rosepatel
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #617 on: June 12, 2019, 10:39:13 pm »

That's a negotiating tactic. To ask for everything. And then it almost feels reasonable if you only give them something, even if they weren't entitled to it.

Stardock has taken many different positions on how to affiliate their new game with the old games, but the underlying interest was to make sure that SC:O had some piece of SC2 in it. Whether that was some of the lore, the ships, or even Paul and Fred themselves. They finally got something, and they turned it into their headline.

"Stardock, Paul Reiche to team up on next Star Control game."

I'd agree with you that it's pretty absurd spin. But Stardock is milking it for all it's worth.
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #618 on: June 12, 2019, 10:56:12 pm »

That's a negotiating tactic. To ask for everything. And then it almost feels reasonable if you only give them something, even if they weren't entitled to it.

Stardock has taken many different positions on how to affiliate their new game with the old games, but the underlying interest was to make sure that SC:O had some piece of SC2 in it. Whether that was some of the lore, the ships, or even Paul and Fred themselves. They finally got something, and they turned it into their headline.

"Stardock, Paul Reiche to team up on next Star Control game."

I'd agree with you that it's pretty absurd spin. But Stardock is milking it for all it's worth.
This seems like a bit of deft maneuvering to make Brad feel good about the circumstances. Which is frustrating, because we'd all love to see this reckoning where Brad admits defeat, but that just isn't something that could ever happen. So they gave him some token encouragement and he took the bait.

It's like if a toddler stole your keys, and you had to distract him by dangling a new toy in front of them to get them back. F&P got their damn keys back, and they did it before running out of time and money, so that's the most important thing.
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WibbleNZ
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #619 on: June 13, 2019, 02:44:12 am »

I'm personally a little bit disappointed that SC1 and SC3 have gone commercial again rather than open-source.

The source code for those two don't exist anymore, well, at least for SC1.
Brad says he still hasn't been able to find the source code for SC3 and it's looking like it also may have been lost.

I guess you can't literally open source something without the source, but you can still CC-BY-NC-SA it.
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JHGuitarFreak
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #620 on: June 13, 2019, 02:50:14 am »

I don't know, can you?

Preemptively open source the code in case that it's ever found?
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #621 on: June 13, 2019, 03:48:06 am »

I don't know, can you?

Preemptively open source the code in case that it's ever found?

Maybe?  The trick would be specifying exactly what you were open-sourcing, when you don't have a copy.
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Frogacuda
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #622 on: June 13, 2019, 05:03:10 am »

I don't know, can you?

Preemptively open source the code in case that it's ever found?
Didn't Wardell claim to have the SC1 source at one point? Or was that made up?
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Elestan
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #623 on: June 13, 2019, 05:28:25 am »

Didn't Wardell claim to have the SC1 source at one point? Or was that made up?

According to Serosis, the disc Brad was talking about turned out to be the production master, not the source code.

EDIT: Per followup, that disk was for SC3 (but still wasn't source).

Thinking about it, I believe the rumor I heard was that the SC1 source was lost when Fred's hard drive crashed.  Take that for whatever you think it's worth.
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JHGuitarFreak
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #624 on: June 13, 2019, 06:31:55 am »

I don't know, can you?

Preemptively open source the code in case that it's ever found?
Didn't Wardell claim to have the SC1 source at one point? Or was that made up?

SC3 source. The disc he found said "SC3 Source" on it but was actually just the master copy of the game itself that the CDs were based on.
He never had the SC1 source nor claimed to have it, as far as I remember.
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #625 on: June 13, 2019, 03:19:47 pm »

I don't know, can you?

Preemptively open source the code in case that it's ever found?

Maybe?  The trick would be specifying exactly what you were open-sourcing, when you don't have a copy.

They could grant an open-source style license to the art assets and other creative expressions in SC1 as shipped, including the decompiled executables.  Machine generated C of that certainly wouldn't be pretty, but for the purposes in question would still probably be counted as the original copyrighted game AFAIK. Not sure if the Amiga 68k build would be easier to reverse engineer but toolchains definitely existed if someone wanted to trade a month of their life to re-create something like human readable programs.
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #626 on: June 13, 2019, 03:38:40 pm »

E3 2019

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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #627 on: June 13, 2019, 11:37:20 pm »

This is, honestly, the best possible outcome - and a great statement about the silliness of the legal system, that they had to completely bypass it to do anythign sane.
Congrats to Fred, congrats to Paul, and a somewhat reluctant congratulations to Stardock in this case.
Let the mead flow!
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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #628 on: June 14, 2019, 01:51:43 am »

From the brink we walk away, feeling relieved that we end a dark beginning, freed from compulsion to begin a darker ending.

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Re: Stardock Litigation Discussion
« Reply #629 on: June 14, 2019, 04:34:16 am »

Yes, this outcome is definitely for the best. The current state of things leaves me with a very uncomfortable question: Would I buy the next Star Control game that Stardock has in the pipe? I genuinely have no idea. As an old fan who's painfully aware of the details of the lawsuit, I feel like my answer should be "no". As a profoundly selfish person and as a gamer who just wants his entertainment, my answer should be "yes". Knowing that Brad Wardell tried to trick the core team into handing over rights to UQM, that should be a hard "no" again. Also knowing that every person I've ever met is screwed up in some fashion and being a big believer in forgiveness, there's more reason for "yes". The lawsuit's resolution seems perfectly tailored to make this choice difficult, at least for me. A question for later.
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