You read that right. In a staggering move, Electronic Arts (yes, that Electronic Arts) has released the full source code for C&C Tiberium Dawn, C&C Red Alert, C&C Renegate, and C&C ...
“You can use it as long as you don’t sue us” isn’t very open source. Although I was exaggerating when I said they can refuse access for anyone they don’t like.
The things they patented are also seriously simple. One of them is for changing UI color, they should have never been given them in the first place.
It’s better to assume the worst when dealing with EA.
No, that is “you can use it unless you specifically sue us for infringing on the patent we’re releasing”, as I read it. I don’t know how necessary it is to protect yourself from somebody taking the patent you’ve released freely, patenting them themselves and then suing you back, but that seems to be what they’re protecting against.
This entire thread is about how assuming the worst when it comes to EA is often not giving them credit for a number of actually cool stuff they do. This included, in my book. I don’t think that “oh, sure this someone is doing seems fine, but don’t trust them anyway” is a particularly good way to handle… well, pretty much anything. You don’t need to fanboy for corporations, but you also don’t need to rage against them consistently. The whole idea is to reward them for good moves and punish them for bad ones.
This seems like a good move. More of this, as far as I’m concerned.
Ok, but it’s simply not open source and patents aren’t something that should be encouraged in the videogame industry. Patents are expensive (too expensive for the indie scene) and usually used to bully smaller players.
Not to mention they patented things that were already common. If they were altruistic, they would have just actually open sourced it and called it a day. They also have other patents of common things that they didn’t add to the pledge, this “altruisme” is mostly just there to add weight to patents in the industry when it thoroughly didn’t exist before EA and Warner Bros smelled blood in the water.
The wording from what I understand also means they can hit back for any kind of patent related litigation, not just for this one specifically. It’s a threat. “Don’t fuck with us and you can keep using this thing we made”, but the thing they “made” has already existed for a decade or two and they certainly weren’t the first. It’s just bad vibes behavior imo.
I guess…? Were you planning to sue EA for patent infringement? Because it specifies that the exception applies to patent-based lawsuits.
I mean, “let’s plant some patents for accessibility tech that we give away with a specific caveat and then turn the tables on someone who is trying to sue us for some unrelated patent infringement but may have used our accessibility patents before” is a hell of a long con.
Look, you’re fixating on finding a caveat to this so you get to keep being angry with these guys and I’m here to free you from that burden. You get to keep being mad with them and still acknowledge that someone, somewhere in there did a mostly good thing for mostly good reasons. It’s fine.
EA isn’t a person. There’s a ton of people there. Some seem quite nice. On a more general level, the entire risk of unbridled corporate dominance of public life is that it’s entirely possible for a company made entirely of very nice people to do some bad shit sometimes, or even most of the time. You don’t need them to be an evil cabal to call them out when they do that. And you don’t lose any face for acknowledging when they don’t.
“You can use it as long as you don’t sue us” isn’t very open source. Although I was exaggerating when I said they can refuse access for anyone they don’t like.
The things they patented are also seriously simple. One of them is for changing UI color, they should have never been given them in the first place.
It’s better to assume the worst when dealing with EA.
No, that is “you can use it unless you specifically sue us for infringing on the patent we’re releasing”, as I read it. I don’t know how necessary it is to protect yourself from somebody taking the patent you’ve released freely, patenting them themselves and then suing you back, but that seems to be what they’re protecting against.
This entire thread is about how assuming the worst when it comes to EA is often not giving them credit for a number of actually cool stuff they do. This included, in my book. I don’t think that “oh, sure this someone is doing seems fine, but don’t trust them anyway” is a particularly good way to handle… well, pretty much anything. You don’t need to fanboy for corporations, but you also don’t need to rage against them consistently. The whole idea is to reward them for good moves and punish them for bad ones.
This seems like a good move. More of this, as far as I’m concerned.
Ok, but it’s simply not open source and patents aren’t something that should be encouraged in the videogame industry. Patents are expensive (too expensive for the indie scene) and usually used to bully smaller players.
Not to mention they patented things that were already common. If they were altruistic, they would have just actually open sourced it and called it a day. They also have other patents of common things that they didn’t add to the pledge, this “altruisme” is mostly just there to add weight to patents in the industry when it thoroughly didn’t exist before EA and Warner Bros smelled blood in the water.
The wording from what I understand also means they can hit back for any kind of patent related litigation, not just for this one specifically. It’s a threat. “Don’t fuck with us and you can keep using this thing we made”, but the thing they “made” has already existed for a decade or two and they certainly weren’t the first. It’s just bad vibes behavior imo.
I guess…? Were you planning to sue EA for patent infringement? Because it specifies that the exception applies to patent-based lawsuits.
I mean, “let’s plant some patents for accessibility tech that we give away with a specific caveat and then turn the tables on someone who is trying to sue us for some unrelated patent infringement but may have used our accessibility patents before” is a hell of a long con.
Look, you’re fixating on finding a caveat to this so you get to keep being angry with these guys and I’m here to free you from that burden. You get to keep being mad with them and still acknowledge that someone, somewhere in there did a mostly good thing for mostly good reasons. It’s fine.
EA isn’t a person. There’s a ton of people there. Some seem quite nice. On a more general level, the entire risk of unbridled corporate dominance of public life is that it’s entirely possible for a company made entirely of very nice people to do some bad shit sometimes, or even most of the time. You don’t need them to be an evil cabal to call them out when they do that. And you don’t lose any face for acknowledging when they don’t.