You are right, licensing could be an issue.
But as others said this is not a retroactive law, so new software must be developed accounting for a “free” redistribution.
Hardcoded paths are just bad practice.
Never said it’s easy, but it’s not that hard. At my job we are required to deploy the whole server infrastructure on-premise, so we only use software with MIT license or something that allows us to distribute to our clients without disclosing the source code. We’ve been doing this for the last 20-ish years, our software accepts easily hundred of thousands of connections and with Docker and similar tech the whole thing can run on standalone PC (with performance limitations of course).
It’s not easy, but it’s doable.
And that it’s all that is required by this proposal.
I’ve been involved in creating an on-premise version of a cloud server. We decided the best approach was just to make it a separate thing with barebones functionality. Just ensuring the client side software could connect to this on-premise solution without crashing was hard work enough.
The thing is that making an on-premise product takes deliberate effort. It’s rarely ”just ship an exe file” (or even ”just ship a docker compose file”)
I believe if this is passed game studios will resort to the same approach my team did - just ship a barebones version of the server side software.
I’m responding to the claim that ”It’s not a challenge” and that the game developers can just ”release the server for free”. It might be doable, but not easy. Especially when there’s a lot of time pressure involved.
Maybe I made it sound too easy because I’m used to do it and I find more challenging to add security features for authentication or to use some licensed libraries 😅 that’s a bias on my part.
Still I am not a good developer, and I have done it.
Even the industry has done it, just look at all the downloadable servers on Steam, some of them even free.
I expected it will not be difficult for experienced developers to comply.
You are right, licensing could be an issue. But as others said this is not a retroactive law, so new software must be developed accounting for a “free” redistribution. Hardcoded paths are just bad practice.
Never said it’s easy, but it’s not that hard. At my job we are required to deploy the whole server infrastructure on-premise, so we only use software with MIT license or something that allows us to distribute to our clients without disclosing the source code. We’ve been doing this for the last 20-ish years, our software accepts easily hundred of thousands of connections and with Docker and similar tech the whole thing can run on standalone PC (with performance limitations of course).
It’s not easy, but it’s doable. And that it’s all that is required by this proposal.
I’ve been involved in creating an on-premise version of a cloud server. We decided the best approach was just to make it a separate thing with barebones functionality. Just ensuring the client side software could connect to this on-premise solution without crashing was hard work enough.
The thing is that making an on-premise product takes deliberate effort. It’s rarely ”just ship an exe file” (or even ”just ship a docker compose file”)
I believe if this is passed game studios will resort to the same approach my team did - just ship a barebones version of the server side software.
And that’s just what is needed, if the game works as it does while supported.
Yes, but it’s still a major challenge.
I’m responding to the claim that ”It’s not a challenge” and that the game developers can just ”release the server for free”. It might be doable, but not easy. Especially when there’s a lot of time pressure involved.
Maybe I made it sound too easy because I’m used to do it and I find more challenging to add security features for authentication or to use some licensed libraries 😅 that’s a bias on my part.
Still I am not a good developer, and I have done it. Even the industry has done it, just look at all the downloadable servers on Steam, some of them even free. I expected it will not be difficult for experienced developers to comply.