Favorite freeware game

[Zarel]

BfW may fall into the freeware category if you go for hasty generalization (fallacy). Otherwise it's not exactly freeware.

Freeware.
Free software.

Wesnoth is Free Software. Not "freeware", to be precise. So yeah, it makes a difference. Most of what is distributed as "freeware" is NOT Free as in Freedom to redistribute (gratis or not) and modify.

I'm not sure why no one's pointed this out yet, but your linked article says:

Freeware (from "free" and "software") is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee.

Why is Wesnoth not freeware? I'm pretty sure Wesnoth is both freeware and free software - they're not exactly mutually exclusive. While much of freeware is not FOSS, nearly all FOSS is freeware.

[Aethaeryn]

BfW may fall into the freeware category if you go for hasty generalization (fallacy). Otherwise it's not exactly freeware.

Freeware.
Free software.

Wesnoth is Free Software. Not "freeware", to be precise. So yeah, it makes a difference. Most of what is distributed as "freeware" is NOT Free as in Freedom to redistribute (gratis or not) and modify.

I'm not sure why no one's pointed this out yet, but your linked article says:

Freeware (from "free" and "software") is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee.

Why is Wesnoth not freeware? I'm pretty sure Wesnoth is both freeware and free software - they're not exactly mutually exclusive. While much of freeware is not FOSS, nearly all FOSS is freeware.

I agree. It's an overlapping categorization because free software is about permissive licensing while freeware is about price. Wesnoth, being available for free and being available under the GPL, is both.

It ceases to be 100% freeware if you have to pay for the iPhone version, though.

I can understand how it's annoying, though, when people in clear ignorance blur the distinction between FOSS and freeware.

[Ken_Oh]

Bruno's Star Wars games (sorry, windows only), especially BoE (I don't like BoY as much since the trench run is really boring).

Oh, and do try to beat my record in BoE - 374 TIE's, didn't die a single time, destroyed all Executor turrets, finished with Home One having all three turrets intact and two surviving corvettes, too.

Just want to say I saw this last week and BoE have become some of the best fun I've had in a while. I'm actually an action gamer at heart, but I like to have an overlaying strategy element to what I'm doing. This game fulfills that desire completely.

[charlieg]

Nobody mentioned Fish Fillets yet; a devilishly tough puzzle game with a bit of a story and plenty of character.

[EddieMcCandless]

A game that I found very interesting was Dink Smallwood. It is a good RPG game, and is also moddable.

[Enchanteur]

True combat Elite, best tactical FPS of all the time (gameplay far better than CS source), nervous and realistic.
Based on quake3 engine, it's a mod for enemy territory.

http://www.truecombatelite.com/tce.php?page=downloads

[Blarumyrran]

I'm not sure why no one's pointed this out yet, but your linked article says:

Freeware (from "free" and "software") is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee.

Why is Wesnoth not freeware? I'm pretty sure Wesnoth is both freeware and free software - they're not exactly mutually exclusive. While much of freeware is not FOSS, nearly all FOSS is freeware.

I agree. It's an overlapping categorization because free software is about permissive licensing while freeware is about price. Wesnoth, being available for free and being available under the GPL, is both.

It ceases to be 100% freeware if you have to pay for the iPhone version, though.

I can understand how it's annoying, though, when people in clear ignorance blur the distinction between FOSS and freeware.

I dont understand why GPL is considered Free Software though. Public Domain would certainly be free; as a stretch attribution-required-in-the-credits-but-otherwise-do-what-you-will might be free; but i dont think GPL is free. It enforces some kind of weird prohibitive legal structure (which is especially weird considering that all the smallish gpl projects could blatantly rip anything from anywhere in practice simply because noone from the big companies would ever bother to deal with them; and in the unlikely case that someone _would_ bother, they could always _then_ start using placeholders instead! I dont know if its because of law, but ive seen the big companies seem to give time for free projects to retract their purported copyrights violations instead of actually going to the court right away. Theres a mod for Heroes Of Might And Magic 3 called Wake Of Gods that I always like to bring as example - its a crack based on heroes3, steals images from heroes4, disciples, age of empires and probably countless other sources that i just dont recognize - and its still around (even if gradually being forgotten) after some 5? years - even a new version is bound to come out in near future (as some core devs purportedly have returned)! Its not even so marginal - less people have played it than wesnoth, but still i guess hundreds of thousands - i have met some people in real life who have independently discovered it, also google trends gives this, http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22battl ... all&sort=0 which shows they are at least comparable, that is not bad considering the latter is theoretically incredibly illegal and can not be promoted to the ever-growing linux userbase the way wesnoth can. But that is all really besides the point, its always good practice to assume everyone obeys even unenforced laws). I dont see why anyone would ever want to license something under GPL other than to comply with a used source material that has GPL(which is in the end the negative, viral, prohibitive aspect of GPL!). Sure, in theory someone could proprietarily make something that uses your public domain creation - but if you had licensed it under gpl, the chance that your creation would not have been used is vastly greater than that the purported good side of the GPL-s viralness would kick in and cause the maker of the resulting project to license his stuff as GPL too. I think? I dont have statistics to back me up. I dont even imagine how would such statistics be gathered in a neutral way. Even if im wrong, and GPL does have significant effect in increasing the amount of at least pseudo-free software, its still just wrong to present it as the epitome of freeness as people all too often do.

Not to mention that public domain/cc0 is just so simple. GPL is complex and has huge gray areas. I like simple stuff, at least in the legal area. The time checking compatibility of different licenses can always be used up on some more productive activities.

[Zarel]

Excuse me while I reformat your post to be readable. >_<

I dont understand why GPL is considered Free Software though. Public Domain would certainly be free; as a stretch attribution-required-in-the-credits-but-otherwise-do-what-you-will might be free; but i dont think GPL is free.

It enforces some kind of weird prohibitive legal structure (which is especially weird considering that all the smallish gpl projects could blatantly rip anything from anywhere in practice simply because no one from the big companies would ever bother to deal with them; and in the unlikely case that someone _would_ bother, they could always _then_ start using placeholders instead! I dont know if its because of law, but ive seen the big companies seem to give time for free projects to retract their purported copyrights violations instead of actually going to the court right away.

Theres a mod for Heroes Of Might And Magic 3 called Wake Of Gods that I always like to bring as example - its a crack based on heroes3, steals images from heroes4, disciples, age of empires and probably countless other sources that i just dont recognize - and its still around (even if gradually being forgotten) after some 5? years - even a new version is bound to come out in near future (as some core devs purportedly have returned)! Its not even so marginal - less people have played it than wesnoth, but still i guess hundreds of thousands - i have met some people in real life who have independently discovered it, also google trends gives this, http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22battl ... all&sort=0 which shows they are at least comparable, that is not bad considering the latter is theoretically incredibly illegal and can not be promoted to the ever-growing linux userbase the way wesnoth can.

But that is all really besides the point, its always good practice to assume everyone obeys even unenforced laws). I dont see why anyone would ever want to license something under GPL other than to comply with a used source material that has GPL(which is in the end the negative, viral, prohibitive aspect of GPL!). Sure, in theory someone could proprietarily make something that uses your public domain creation - but if you had licensed it under gpl, the chance that your creation would not have been used is vastly greater than that the purported good side of the GPL-s viralness would kick in and cause the maker of the resulting project to license his stuff as GPL too. I think? I dont have statistics to back me up. I dont even imagine how would such statistics be gathered in a neutral way. Even if im wrong, and GPL does have significant effect in increasing the amount of at least pseudo-free software, its still just wrong to present it as the epitome of freeness as people all too often do.

Not to mention that public domain/cc0 is just so simple. GPL is complex and has huge gray areas. I like simple stuff, at least in the legal area. The time checking compatibility of different licenses can always be used up on some more productive activities.

While the GPL is less "free" than public domain licenses, it's still reasonably simple for most purposes. If you release all your derivative works as GPL, you really don't need to worry about anything. If you're just using/redistributing the software, you don't need to worry about anything.

Copyleft licenses are called "Free" because the only way in which they are not free is the sense that they enforce the freedom of derivative works. You can consider this an abuse of language all you want, but there's nothing I can do about it, personally.

As far as I know, though, CC0 is generally what's presented as the epitome of freeness, because that's what it is...

[Aethaeryn]

I dont understand why GPL is considered Free Software though. Public Domain would certainly be free; as a stretch attribution-required-in-the-credits-but-otherwise-do-what-you-will might be free; but i dont think GPL is free. It enforces some kind of weird prohibitive legal structure...

The theory behind it is that public domain doesn't protect the software. Basically, this is to (in theory) prevent someone from stealing someone else's work. At least in this case the derivatives are just as free as the original.

Are you against the GPL just because it is the most popular FOSS license?

[Blarumyrran]

While the GPL is less "free" than public domain licenses, it's still reasonably simple for most purposes.

But there are even simpler ones, so why would anyone who doesnt base his stuff on gpl-ed stuff ever use it?

If you release all your derivative works as GPL, you really don't need to worry about anything.

You could say that for most licenses.

If you're just using/redistributing the software, you don't need to worry about anything.

You could say that for most licenses.

The theory behind it is that public domain doesn't protect the software. Basically, this is to (in theory) prevent someone from stealing someone else's work. At least in this case the derivatives are just as free as the original.

Yes and as i said i dont think the advantage of letting someone steal your stuff and use it under gpl, than just let someone steal it, is noteworthy if an advantage at all.

[Zarel]

But there are even simpler ones, so why would anyone who doesnt base his stuff on gpl-ed stuff ever use it?

So that all your derivative works will stay "free". See below.

You could say that for most licenses.

True. I'm not saying the GPL is better than those other licenses; just that it isn't worse.

Yes and as i said i dont think the advantage of letting someone steal your stuff and use it under gpl, than just let someone steal it, is noteworthy if an advantage at all.

It's debatable, but many people (Stallman being the classic example) believe that there's a pretty big advantage, in that all derivative works must remain as free as the original work. I mean, is it really "stealing" if you have just as much right to their derivative work as to your own, right down to access to their source code?

The FSF, GNU, etc probably argue the point better than I do: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html

(Especially considering they're the ones who support it; I'm just neutral here.)

[Jetrel]

The theory behind it is that public domain doesn't protect the software. Basically, this is to (in theory) prevent someone from stealing someone else's work. At least in this case the derivatives are just as free as the original.

Yes and as i said i dont think the advantage of letting someone steal your stuff and use it under gpl, than just let someone steal it, is noteworthy if an advantage at all.

For art, there really aren't many advantages over a CC-license, other than having the art under the same license as the code so silly groups like debian can include it in their repositories without sinning against their religion.

For code, there's a major, major freaking reason to do as GPL, and that's that you want to force anyone else who does steal it to at least keep the source code open.

For example, if you make an app that saves documents, and some other company does the MS-like "embrace->extend" job of using your format, but adding a few proprietary-to-them extensions to it, there are two outcomes:
1] under a gpl license, you can see exactly what they changed, and backport support for it into your program. Everyone stays on the same standard, no weeping, no gnashing of teeth.
2] under a PD/BSD/MIT/Whatever license, you may be screwed. They might not release the source, in which case you'd have to reverse-engineer what they did to make it work; and that's either orders of magnitude harder, or just plain impossible.

Most of the god-awful nightmare firefox, opera, and webkit have had emulating IE's bugs would have been solved in a fraction of time if we'd at least had IE's source code so we could tell exactly what it was doing.

The above also applies to enhancements. There's also a beautiful thing, too, with such enhancements, which is that they remain publicly marketable, because 'added features' usually take a few months for other people using the codebase to use. You usually have a short window in which your product is superior, but you also benefit from not being an 'island'; people can actually use these enhancements because they can count on them to be something the whole world will eventually support, rather than just being something in your little walled garden.


This was actually one of the big things that killed the pre-GPL unixes - there were several companies that sold unix, but the problem was they each had special customizations to differentiate them in the market, and these never got ported to the other unixes. So you couldn't use them, because they wouldn't run on anything but, say, a Sun box, or an AIX box. Ergo there was practically no software written for anything but the dog-[censored] 'lowest-common denominator'. Which meant that a lot of unix software was rather inferior to Windows software (since for example unix didn't have a good standard UI then), and that compounded their losses to windows. These days, all linux is GPL, so any improvements made by red hat et al can actually make a difference in the world, rather than existing only in their little walled garden.


So that's the reason you want to do GPL instead of PD. Because it lets you steal back other people's improvements to code they've 'stolen'.

[Eskon]

ADOM still holds the number one spot in my heart. Battle for Wesnoth, Dwarf Fortress and Iji rank quite high as well.

[Sky_Father]

One day Dwarf Fortress will be my favourite freeware game, but as it stands it becomes very stale once you've mastered the fine arts of smoothing and engraving tiles to make the lil' beardfolk extra happy, setting loads of traps in your doorway, trading your expensive ale-based meals for iron and strong animals to guard your fort and farming.

So I'll say:

Spelunky! A rogue-like-like platformer roughly based on Indiana Jones and other pulp adventurers.
http://www.spelunkyworld.com/
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=4017.0

Also Cave story for it is the classic of indie games and Crawl, perhaps the only fair rogue-like.

[Igginator]

My two favourites would definatly have to be battle for wesnoth and Alien Assualt.

Alien Assualt is a game that uses the same rules as the popular space hulk boardgame released by games workshop.
Alien Assualt is completely free, moddable and currently has 3 campaigns with more on the way and heaps of fan scenarios and campaigns too.
Its set on floating space ships and space stations infested with deadly aliens called the swarm and an elite team of marines are sent in to perform missions etc.
Really good game and i recommend to all, its also in the top 5 games hosted on strategy informer.
The official game website can be found here: www.Teardown.se