Good to hear. Mostly...kinda...

Yeah, except for that part about LEC continuing to show their ignorant idiocy.

Originally posted by Snover
Yeah, except for that part about LEC continuing to show their ignorant idiocy.

Give 'em time - they are being better sports than MOST companies out there, at least they are willing to negotiate :)

But it's annoying me because we've made enough changes for at least 4 new releases over the last few months, and I -really- want to get a new one out the door. <sigh>

What's the biggest snag as far as their requirements in order to release the new version is concerned?

Originally posted by Snover
What's the biggest snag as far as their requirements in order to release the new version is concerned?

It's their whole commercial use definition. They won't agree to allow distribution with other commercial software, which means that ScummVM can't be bundled in Linux/BSD distributions that are also sold.

The main headache with this is that several distributions already include ScummVM in it's current GPL'ed form, and automatically update their version. So it's a lot of hassle to a) get other those people to change, and b) agree to something we really don't have any control over. I have no guarantee that other people arn't bundled ScummVM that I don't know about.

So I don't want to agree to their deal until they cave in on this one, because it leaves us wide open to a bunch of problems.

Hi,

I don't understand their position. Imagine, for example, that DosBox could be able to emulate all LEC games right now. DosBox is also GPL and can also be bundled with commercial linux distributions. Why do they object to scummvm then?

Sooner or later they'll have to accept it. Honestly, I can't see the point in their current stance.

By the way, even if DosBox could emulate perfectly all LEC games right now, ScummVM has a few strong points that make it unique and useful. I love, for example, having the option of storing monkey island CD audio tracks as mp3 files. That way I can get rid of the annoying spinning noise of my cdrom while playing.

Best luck and thanks for your great effort.
Regards.

I think we should understand the differences between the stance of the people in a company (personnel in general) and the lawyers for that same company. Lawyers in these positions (often) aren't actually familiar with the actual end-product of the company (AKA: the game), just that it's an "asset" that has legal protection. Also, lack of communication can be an issue as well.

A good example was when Underdogs obtained permission from Sierra to distribute their out-of-print classics ( I believe this was from customer service) only to have Sierra's legal department to contact them the next day and demand immediate removal of the downloads.

Wow, that's why Sierra doesn't offer downloads? I mean, it says on their site that it's because it's a company protected under IDSN or whatever, despite Sierra or its parent company not being listed on the list linked to. There you go, I guess.

Snover wrote:

that's why Sierra doesn't offer downloads?

There's talk of Sierra getting back into the adventure business, so they've clamped down on things as far as copyright goes.

http://www.sierra-quest.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard … forum=1&topic=3

I have my doubts about how they handle this. Unless they make the games free for download as publicity or remake them so modern machines can run them without headaches, then they may very well turn off the customers they hope to sell new games to...

Bullshit. How long ago did HotU try to add Sierra games? At LEAST two years ago.

Snover wrote:

How long ago did HotU try to add Sierra games? At LEAST two years ago.

I'm not saying that the reason they denied distribution two years ago was because they were planning a revival. I'm just saying that, at present, they seem to be especially intolerant of "abandonware" distribution of their titles because they are convinced that they can somehow use the old titles in some way to help promote their new series. (I think the last time they posted Sierra titles for download was about a year ago, but I can't confirm because their news archive only goes back to June 2002).

Prior to that, I'm sure it was the classic "our copyright" without further comment. FWIW, Underdogs has been soliciting various companies to release their "abandoned" titles for some time now.

Sierra's first new title was to be Space Quest 7, but It's gone all quiet other than rumors for the past few months.
http://wiw.org/~jess/sq7.html

I'd rather see them fix their old shit than release new shit. Seriously. Besides, poor sales of SQ6 and SQCOL probably caused them to scrap SQ7 for, like, Tribes 3 or some shit like that. 😒 Heh, I've used shit four times in this message. Impressive.

Anyway, jump in the wayback machine. 😀

Snover wrote:

I'd rather see them fix their old shirts than release new shirts.

Ah, the return of the drunken sailor. In any case, fixing their old shirts would probably require the original source files and the original programmers. Both of which were probably lost when they hastily shut down Sierra's original headquarters.

...poor sales of SQ6 and SQCOL probably caused them to scrap SQ7...

That's pretty accurate, actually. Of course, the environment that generated the original games had been long gone and customers in general were screaming for everything to be 3D-accellerated. Their attempt at merging 3D with Sierra classics didn't come off too well, but there was a spike in sales of "King's Quest: Mask of Eternity" (which had little to do with the original series) which (according to rumor) came from lots of people who had downloaded and played the "King's Quest 1" VGA remake.

Actually, it's probably management realizing that they've just about milked Half-Life to death and that they need more titles; then realized that they were sitting on top of a very large franchise from Sierra's original catalog. I'm betting that they mess up the opportunity, I'm hoping I'm wrong.

Anyway, jump in the wayback machine.

Heh. Handy thing that. I couldn't remember the date, so I took a wild guess and got it right the first time:
July 28, 2001

Received words from Sierra's legal dept. that the e-mail exchange we received isn't enough to for us to distribute their abandoned games, so we had to remove them again. Clearly people at Vivendi/Sierra need to get together and decide on a *coherent* policy regarding oldies. It is not a little ironic that Sierra's Customer Support is telling customers that they can download out-of-print titles from this site, while their Legal Dept. is declaring that we are not authorized to do so. In any event, our dialog with Sierra is progressing, and we will keep you informed of major developments. Until we have explicit authorization to distribute the games, however, we cannot put the downloads back up.

Wonder what happened to their progressing dialogue... anyone on the ins with the Underdogs want to email her and ask about that?

Originally posted by Snover
Wonder what happened to their progressing dialogue... anyone on the ins with the Underdogs want to email her and ask about that?

Probably the same thing that's happened to our dialog with LucasArts - it just stops and they no longer answer our emails. *grumbles and spams them a few more times*

If they've decided to stop talking to you, just release it. I mean, seriously. If they are that irresponsible, maybe it takes something drastic like this to get them to talk to you again. (eg. Cease and Desist)

I don't know if you have seen it yet, but they seem to be going for ScummVM 0.3.0 😁

http://scummvm.sourceforge.net/
"Well, we seem to have lost contact with LucasArts, as we haven't heard from them for several weeks now. So, assuming they don't suddenly e-mail us and veto it, we are preparing for a 0.3.0 release."

Originally posted by [vEX] I don't know if you have seen it yet, but they seem to be going for ScummVM 0.3.0 :D http://scummvm […]
Show full quote

Originally posted by [vEX]
I don't know if you have seen it yet, but they seem to be going for ScummVM 0.3.0 :D

http://scummvm.sourceforge.net/
"Well, we seem to have lost contact with LucasArts, as we haven't heard from them for several weeks now. So, assuming they don't suddenly e-mail us and veto it, we are preparing for a 0.3.0 release."

Of course we are!

It looks like we might even be able to fit in another game in 0.3.0 - I've had some breakthroughs in support for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (256 Color) today... But no promises on that one, there are still a few major bugs I'd have to fix within the week for it to make 0.3.0 :)

Ooh, Ender! Less talking here, more coding there! 😉