Is Blender's DOGWALK Even Libre?
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Blender Studio released yet another project, but unlike most of their projects, this time it is a game. It's called DOGWALK. Last time that they made a game was in 2008 with Yo Frankie!, which was supposed to be a showcase of the Blender Game Engine. Since version 2.8 Blender no longer has the Game Engine ( unless you are using one of the forks, like UPBGE, which I use for Dani's Race ). So this time the game is actually made in Godot with modeling and animation work done in Blender.
![[embedded image]](/pictures/user_upload/blenderdumbass/dogwalk.jpg "Screenshot of DOGWALK, a child is walking a very happy dog through the snowy landscape.")
It seems like the project is meant to show that they understand the frustrations of people who didn't understand where the Game Engine was gone. And in the same time, to develop / polish Blender in regards to game development.
The question stands though: Is DOGWALK even Libre?
People know that DOGWALK can be installed via Steam. A proprietary piece of Software that uses defective by design technology. But that is not necessarily a problem. You can download a GNU / Linux package of the game on their website and in other places like itch.io. So at the very least they give you options.
To be libre though, this is not important. What is important is that the piece of software adheres to the Free Software Definition. In short this means, the software should grand the user the 4 essential freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The game is licensed under CC-BY. A license that is Libre based on the opinion of the Free Software Foundation's lawyers. I mean, if you think about it. This is a very basic very push-over license. It is as libre as something like MIT. But maybe even a bit more push over than MIT. So here we go, the game is libre!
Not so fast!
For the freedoms 1 and 3 every user of the game should have the source code of the game with it. It does not mean everybody should have the source code. Only those who have the game's executable. So you could in theory sell it, or put it under some kind of a paywall, as long as both the game and the source code are under the same paywall. Dani's Race petitions system is okay, because the game's package is essentially its source code. But when you download DOGWALK you see two binary files.
On the official DOGWALK's webpage there is a button called "Source Code" that, in the time of me writing, is locked under an additional paywall. While the game itself is essentially available gratis. This does not seem to be libre.
Yet on the further examination I found this github repository which appears to be an unofficial re-upload of the DOGWALK's source code. Yet it seems to be still licensed under the same license, meaning it makes the game, at least a game built from these sources, technically Libre.
Somebody probably got access to the source code from the official means, saw that it gave them the right to publish it so that everybody will have access to it, and that made the game, probably, finally Libre as a result.
Happy Hacking!!!
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