Debian Games = OpenContent ?

[Linas Žvirblis]

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Christian Melsbach wrote:

> I am trying to build a website about games that are open source and use open content. 

There is a difference between Free and Open Source. For example you can
release the source with a license saying "you cannot modify it, unless
you pay me some megabucks". That would make it Open Source, but not Free.

> So does this mean all Debian games are "open content games" too [...] ?

Yes and no. Read below...

> So what does the term "non-free" exactly mean?

It means that this is not Free Software. It also means that this is not
a part of Debian (will not be included in CD/DVD releases). Simply put:

 "non-free" == "not Free Software" == "not in Debian"

There are also cases when the game engine is Free, but the content is
not. In that case, the engine will go into "contrib" (part of Debian),
and the content will go into "non-free" (not part of Debian). Examples
of such games are Tremulous, Flight of the Amazon Queen.

We also sometimes (often) remove non-free parts from a game to make it
truly Free, so games in Debian may differ from their upstream (original)
version. These usually have "dfsg" added to the version, but some
maintainers sometimes forget (*ahem*) about this.

Look at http://www.debian.org/intro/free for more information on what is
considered Free Software in Debian.

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