Official forums for BZFlag.org

Will this game ever cost money? What do u guys think?

...Maybe a branch of the game will cost money, and if I recall, a company does/did charge for BZFlag at one point.

Are you insane? This game should never cost money, even if Win Xp said it did at one point. Its a a download! So we're going to go to the best buy or gaming store and buy the game there? I don't think so.

This game cost money at one point? Wow.

it might for windows but for linux no i think it won't (im a linux usr):D

I would think that the GPL would prevent this game or any derivatives from being commercial software... though I may be wrong on that.

Geo Dude wrote:it might for windows but for linux no i think it won't (im a linux usr):D

So...the fact that you use Linux says that something can't cost money?

People can - and do charge for linux software.

Win Xp wrote:

Geo Dude wrote:it might for windows but for linux no i think it won't (im a linux usr):D

So...the fact that you use Linux says that something can't cost money?

People can - and do charge for linux software.

Under the GPL, (if i remember correctly) you can charge for software. Take redhat, it charges for RHEL, but you can re-distribute it after you've bought it. So, buy it once, redistribute it.

Think_Different wrote:

Win Xp wrote:

Geo Dude wrote:it might for windows but for linux no i think it won't (im a linux usr):D

So...the fact that you use Linux says that something can't cost money?

People can - and do charge for linux software.

Under the GPL, (if i remember correctly) you can charge for software. Take redhat, it charges for RHEL, but you can re-distribute it after you've bought it. So, buy it once, redistribute it.

Under the GPL, you can charge for something but source code format has to be readily available to people who have bought it. The source code is under the GPL, so you can modify it and redistribute it within the GPL, but, IIRC, you can not redistribute the binary (bought form).

Basically what you said with it being more clear...

This game is definitely good enough to charge money for, but the fact that it is free means you can get anyone you know to play it and download, install and play it as much as you like.

I think charging for it would pretty much cripple its user base. If you think that now the first page of servers generally have players on, this would probably drop to the first two or three servers.

Oh, I just thought of something else. If we had to buy this game, for how much (20$ 30$ 40$?) the server owners would need to pay for it to, not to mention the cost of the server itself. This could cause a decline in many (how do you say this....) "low income" server owners.

This is such a dumb thread. The game itself will never, ever, cost money. The devs have stated this numerous times. As long as the game itself is free, people will run free servers. Even if some servers start requiring you to pay to play, they will be a minority and most likely unable to sustain a playerbase.

As already said, even if someone does start charging for BZFlag binaries, it doesn't really matter, the GPL allows for the source to be freely distributed and compiled for those who bought the software, so it would only take one user for everyone else to get it for free.

For example, CentOS? It's a recompile of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. And yet its freely available.

There's nothing that's going to stop the Free Software Movement, your concerns are unwarranted.

If you are trying to assign a relative monetary value to the game, well, just don't. 15 years worth of people will tell you its priceless.

I dont think this game will ever cost money cause no one would really want to buy a new version every time on comes out.

Not that I'm for P2P, but using it would greatly reduce the number of laggers, spammers, cheaters, etc. Of course the logical reason for this is that there would be fewer of all players, and that would inherently reduce problems on [any] server(s).

And now for my rash and juvenille opinion:
P2P is stoopyd and we should never impliment any kind of P2P system for BZFlag, because it stinks. Many people would stop playing the game if there was a price put on it.

P2P NEVER! EVER! EVER! EVER! EVER! :spazem:

BZFlag makes my world go around!

if I had to pay for it, I'd have to go back to sucking horribly at Armagetron (which I still do at times).


But hey, as long as it's free, I'd be willing to donate to the cause.

... once I start getting more hours at work, that is.

Minimum wage here just went up to $6.85 an hour, so that should help me out a bit.

Tropican8 wrote:This is such a dumb thread. BZFlag will never, ever, cost money. The devs have stated this numerous times.

As already stated, even if someone does, it doesn't really matter, the GPL allows for the source to be freely distributed and compiled for those who bought the software, so it would only take one user for everyone else to get it for free.

For example, CentOS? It's a recompile of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. And yet its freely available.

There's nothing that's going to stop the Free Software Movement, your concerns are unwarranted.

If you are trying to assign a relative monetary value to the game, well, just don't. 15 years worth of people will tell you its priceless.

Yeah I agree with you spazzy. its a freeware game not a shareware game.

Makeing the game P2P would ruin it's reputation, I agree with TangenT i'd be willling to donate...but never pay to play it.

1) you can charge whatever you want for open source software, you just have to provide the source as well, and you can't change the license. So that means if someone purchases it, they could use the license to redistribute it for free if they want, as long as they provide source as well. This makes most commercial distribution of the game code pointless. There are a few companies ( linspire, etc.. ) that have subscription or purchase based software repositories. They do have bzflag, and yes they do charge for it. They can legally do that since they also provide the source. It is not very popular.

2) A server CAN charge for you to play on it if they want to. The game license has nothing to do with the hosting or the content the game uses. It's just like using the open source Firefox on a pay website. Paying for the website content doesn't mean your paying for the browser. There has been talk of "members only" or "pay to play" servers, mostly to help support the cost of hosting, and to keep out abusers/cheaters ( who's going to pay to cheat ). But as far as I know, nobody has done that yet, but it would be perfectly legit. I think there will always be a number of free servers no mater what.

Since we distribute the software via SourceForge, we will never charge for our official clients as long as we use that service. We have talked about a donation/membership system to help cover the costs of running the list server, these forums, and other expenses, and that may entail access to a special server, or some other goodies ( special mark or symbol on your account to show your helping ), but we will never require anyone to pay to play. This was all just talk, so nothing may come of it.

Man jeff ur good.

you are the Hellawhack shiznit in my brizzle lol. in other words thanks for explaining.

i sure hope it doesnt cost money

TangenT wrote:Minimum wage here just went up to $6.85 an hour, so that should help me out a bit.

My brother works at Wal*Mart and he started out at $7.50 an hour. He's been working there for about 4 and a half months and he now makes $8.25. Not bad for someone his age. Where do you work?

For my opinion on P2P, see above. It's somewhere up there.

Never! bzflag is awesome as it is. Making you pay would be pointless and somewhat ruin it! Good idea, Jeff, about the Donation/Membership with the mark or goodies. That might help the game.

TangenT
That's funny...I play Armagetron too and I'm not very good at it

Seeing that people keep waking this topic, I guess I'll add something. You guys have to worry about paying to play BZFlag if you don't want to. However, it's totally possible that a specific server network could charge players to play. This would enable that server network to purchase better or faster hardware, or even hire full-time administrators to watch the servers. It would also help deter cheaters, because not all of them are willing to risk $$$ when they can go cheat on the free servers.

I think that we have some misconceptions about what free software is here, mostly stemming from the confusion the English language introduces with the word "free".

Most people who speak English think of free in terms of video games and other software as something you don't pay for. Freeware fits this definition. The Opera web browser is freeware.

The other definition of free is the one that Linux, Apache, Firefox, etc. use. This idea of freedom comes from an ideal where everyone involved helps each other, and an open exchange of ideas and source code is normal, rather than the model for software distribution that people think of today, where there are all sorts of restrictions and guilt over copying it and sharing it. Free Software acknowledges that the most natural thing to do when you find/make a cool piece of software is to share it with your friends.

The less you think about money, and the more about freedom and sharing ideas, you're closer to what Free Software means.

The license that BZFlag uses is the LGPL license. The plain GPL license means that you intend to release this software in a way that allows people look at the source code of it. The catch is that if someone else wants to use your code, they can't turn around and make a closed project out of it. Microsoft, for example, is not allowed to take code out of Open Office and add it to Microsoft Office, because MS-Office doesn't use the GPL license. (not trying to start a flame war, just using MS b/c everybody knows them) GPL allows you to redistribute the software, and even charge for it. The catch there is that if you are going to distribute it, you also have to make the source code available and a copy of the GPL license available at the same time. For example, Ubuntu Linux is mostly GPL software. You download the various programs in binary form and install them on your computer. To meet the GPL requirement, Ubuntu also maintains servers with the source code to the same programs that you also may download. My understanding of the LGPL is that the people/person who created the software will allow you to combine it with closed source programs. For example, if BZFlag wanted to use a closed source program like Punk Buster, LGPL allows them to do that.

For a whole raft of information on this subject, visit fsf.org

If it did i would die.
It is the best F2P game ever