VOGONS


Steam (Valve) using Dosbox for its "id Super Pack"

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Reply 20 of 149, by darkgamorck

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It'll be interesting to see where this goes. It'd be one thing if they used a recent version of DOSBox or even configured it right... but as of now it looks like Valve/ID really screwed this one up.

As for Steam... it'll be a cold day in hell before I install that piece of garbage. I will never buy into a system where you have buy into continuous DRM in order to just play a game.

Reply 21 of 149, by 404NotFound

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Hey, I know this is my first post, but here goes..

I've been using DosBox for quite awhile now. My favorite things to use it for was MagicCarpet, and it ran quite nicely with the dynamic CPU emulation. (Excuse me if I mess up the terms, I haven't used doxbox in awhile.)

Yes, dosbox is a huge body of work, and the authors should be at least recognized.

I just dropped in to say that I got the ID pack, and I really enjoy it. They also very quietly just issued an update to all dosbox running games to include the GPL license (COPYING.TXT), AUTHORS.TXT, and THANKS.TXT. None of these files mention the site itself, as it should.

Also, i'm not 100% sure, but dosbox itself may have been recompiled. Running dosbox.exe launches it through Steam. Removing the dosbox exec from the doom directory then made it complain about missing SDL.dll. Apparantly it's now looking for two dll files, SDL.dll and SDL_net.dll. I'm not sure if this means they hard-coded the link to Steam into the dosbox code, but I thought i'd give you guys the info.

Reply 22 of 149, by sgtbenc

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After reading the above posts, I restarted the Steam client and checked to see what had been modified and newly created. Not sure if this is any use but, here's a listing.

New:
THANKS.txt (This and the below two are in all of the following directories: \ultimate doom\base\, \doom 2\base, \final doom\base, \master levels of doom
COPYING.txt
AUTHORS.txt

Modified:
\ultimate doom\base\MOUSE.CFG
\ultimate doom\base\DOOMSAV0.DSG

This is most likely not complete because I only have the four above games currently installed.
==============================================================
The content of the three new files is listed below:

THANKS.txt

We would like to thank: […]
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We would like to thank:

Vlad R. of the vdmsound project for excellent sound blaster info.
Tatsuyuki Satoh of the Mame Team for making an excellent FM emulator.
Jarek Burczynski for the new OPL emulator.

The Bochs and DOSemu projects which I used for information.
Freedos for ideas in making my shell.

Pierre-Yves Gérardy for hosting the old Beta Board.
Colin Snover for hosting our forum.

Sourceforge for hosting our homepage and other development tools.
Mirek Luza, for his moderation of the forums.
eL_Pusher, DosFreak and MiniMax for their moderation of VOGONS forum.

crazyc and gulikoza for their work on the dynrec core.

Jantien for the version management.
Shawn, Johannes and Marcus for creating the MAC OS X version.
Jochen for creating the OS/2 version.
Ido Beeri for the icon.
All the people who submitted a bug.
The Beta Testers.

COPYING.txt

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991 […]
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GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991

Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
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AUTHORS.txt

The DOSBox Team --------------- […]
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The DOSBox Team
---------------

[...]

nick_without_<> @ users.sourceforge.net

(A little recognition.)

Reply 23 of 149, by Qbix

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it's fun to read the forums claiming that we have contacted id or valve.
For the record we haven't and they haven't contacted us either.

I'm glad to see that the COPYING and AUTHORS and THANKS file were included in the update.
However the distribution of the sourcecode of dosbox is still a bit unclear.

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 24 of 149, by Qbix

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The repair update might have been a bit hasty or not performed by the original creator.

the txt files are from 0.71
while the executable is from 0.70

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 25 of 149, by wd

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Right, the update looks a bit hasty, so i'd say it's nice that they reacted
quite fast. Maybe they simply did not know about the issue before,
so give them a bit time to resolve everything.
As far as i understand the gpl license, they are not required to publish the
sources, but if they don't they have to make sure that the recipients of the
software can acquire the sources easily. Therefore it'd be enough to add
some visible reference to the dosbox homepage/download pages, as they
seem to use an unmodified build. That's the part that is missing.

Reply 26 of 149, by darkgamorck

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Whoa Nelly. They modified the software? If so then they've got some real problems now. It's time to ask for the modified source if you've bought the software guys. If they've modded the thing so that you are forced to run it through Steam (though they might've just moved critical DLLs to other locations and forced you to launch the client using a very specific starting directory or some such trickery), then they modified the source.

And if they did that, the GPL stipulates that anybody who purchased the binary is entitled to a copy of the modified source. Hmmmm.... this suddenly just got a whole lot more interesting. Can somebody post the size, date/time stamp of the dosbox.exe files included with this package?

Reply 27 of 149, by MiniMax

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Qbix wrote:
it's fun to read the forums claiming that we have contacted id or valve. For the record we haven't and they haven't contacted us […]
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it's fun to read the forums claiming that we have contacted id or valve.
For the record we haven't and they haven't contacted us either.

I'm glad to see that the COPYING and AUTHORS and THANKS file were included in the update.
However the distribution of the sourcecode of dosbox is still a bit unclear.

And now we see the next round in the discussions: Late-comers that see the added files and sputters "I'd say this entire topic is just hot air, or that Gargantou is deluded."

DOSBox 60 seconds guide | How to ask questions
_________________
Lenovo M58p | Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66 GHz | Radeon R7 240 | LG HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH40N | Fedora 32

Reply 28 of 149, by wd

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😀

Reply 29 of 149, by Qbix

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they seem to be using a special build of 0.70
The size and md5sum doesn't match the executable of 0.70.

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 30 of 149, by gab

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I doubt that ID software have done the port.
They have asked some external companies and taken the best offer - and paid probably really too much for the job done 😉

Reply 31 of 149, by sgtbenc

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Apparently, this thread hit Slahsdot, so this is getting plenty of attention.

Reply 32 of 149, by canadacow

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More interestingly is that running the DosBox.exe binary included with Steam produces the dialog as shown in the image, and then redirects the user to this Steam website: http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php

Looks to me as though Steam modified the code and hasn't made their changes publicly available... and DosBox isn't an LGPL app either. Good stuff.

Reply 33 of 149, by Vision2098

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What they've done is pretty obvious/well known to Steam users.

The executable can only be run from within or otherwise by Steam itself. Well actually I think you can copy steamclient.dll next to the protected exes and run them, but Steam has to be running and likely logged in or in a suitable offline mode.

Now here's the kicker; I'm not sure if it's a modification or simply an executable wrapper. It could simply be a small wrapper which contains an unmodified exe inside.

I'm not sure where the GPL stands on such things as this because technically, the exe would not be modified in that case (at least not any more than distributing it in a zip file; one requires a digital distribution client, another a zip client)...

But since Valve likely handled this copy protection themselves, I'm thinking it's more of their doing than iD; iD most likely just signed the contract and tossed them the binaries/configured games.

Reply 34 of 149, by ADDiCT

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Heh, i bet this will be a busy monday for the id and Valve guys... (;

Reply 35 of 149, by avatar_58

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Well nice to see they patched the issue up. Are they still forced to include the source though?

Reply 36 of 149, by canadacow

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Vision2098 wrote:

Now here's the kicker; I'm not sure if it's a modification or simply an executable wrapper. It could simply be a small wrapper which contains an unmodified exe inside.

I'm not sure where the GPL stands on such things as this because technically, the exe would not be modified in that case (at least not any more than distributing it in a zip file; one requires a digital distribution client, another a zip client)...

But since Valve likely handled this copy protection themselves, I'm thinking it's more of their doing than iD; iD most likely just signed the contract and tossed them the binaries/configured games.

What you're saying doesn't make any sense when you say, "A small wrapper which contains an unmodified exe?" It's clear since DosBox.exe is now looking for steam.dll and linking to it to perform certain checks with the Steam software. What they've done is modify the DosBox code and create their own build, in clear violation of the GPL. Besides, the only time a "wrapper" (really doesn't matter how big or small it is) is applicable/justified is with the LGPL, not the GPL. Otherwise you must distribute your code like anyone else held to the GPL.

Reply 37 of 149, by darkgamorck

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It would seem so. The executables are modified and this more than likely means the source code for DOSBox was modified as well. This is going to be great. Well in the sense that those jackasses at Valve may finally taste a bit of their own medicine.

/me grabs the popcorn.

Reply 38 of 149, by Vision2098

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If they legally need to do anything it would be to make the source 'available', not 'included' specifically.

Reply 39 of 149, by darkgamorck

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Yes but it's a win/win for everybody. Making the source available would give us valuable insights into the piece of dogsh*t that is Steam. Valve would clearly not choose this option and opt to give everybody a refund and pull the package instead. Either way, Valve and their precious paragon of DRM looses in the end.

It's going to be beautiful.