Who care about it being distributed with or without the (un)necessary files?

MiniMax wrote:

Who care about it being distributed with or without the (un)necessary files?

We all do, and they're pretty damn necessary

DOSBox is missing a GPL "This is Free Software" notice in the program though

"We" as in how many? How big a percentage of the DOSBox users is that? And what type of users is that?

"pretty damn necessary" for what? And for whom?

MiniMax wrote:

"We" as in how many? How big a percentage of the DOSBox users is that? And what type of users is that?

"pretty damn necessary" for what? And for whom?

everyone

There is no excuse for leaving out the license and README files just for a few measly kilobytes of space being freed. It's bad enough we already constantly get people in this forum who don't rtfm (or in this case above, don't read the license file)

Actually I agree. DOSBox should be a shining example of the principles that make it possible to exist as it does and one of the those is the GPL. People who either choose not to respect this principle or do so as an oversight shouldn't just be allowed to do so. Yes VALVe fixed the problem with missing files but if noone had made a fuss I have a feeling they would never have even bothered.

Many, many, many people don't bother to even read the README file.
Many, many, many people don't bother to read the guides here at VOGONS.
A lot of run around with the delusion that abandonware is somehow legal to use.

Do you really think those people have the least interest in pressing some obscure CTRL-ALT-SHIFT combination to be told to go looking for some files that aren't even necessary for the illecit games to work??

Or is this key-combo for the benefit of developers, project managers or whatever that is trying to package up DOSBox with their product?

Who is the audience you intend to reach with this About screen? And do the audience care?

What about in a Help, About menu then? That's pretty standard these days. Whether people care or not isn't the issue, it's that they beome aware.

The audience would be copyright holders who had an easy way to check if a blatant ripoff has been tried. It also would allow supporters in this forum to have users check if they have been ripped off.

A clever enough ripoff can't ever be detected, but the main point of ripping off another's work is to have less work. So making it more difficult to cover your tracks is not the worst of ideas. It would be a kind of watermarking.

BTW, leileilol is right, DOSBox is required to show a certain message and offer the GPL text interactively. Check the GPL for details, it's a rather small issue and easily corrected.

2c) applies only to modified work, whatever that is.
Besides that it's already present: mount k . // k: // type copying.txt

A modified work, as explained in the first paragraph of 2) is a program covered by the GPL which you modify under the terms of the GPL, so unless you are the sole copyright holder (who doesn't need to stick to any license), it applies to DOSBox.

Announcing the fact that DOSBox is free software (and mentioning some help command for all other details, like your mount/type sequence) would benefit DOSBox anyways. After all, the warranty exclusion stuff isn't part of the license just because the lawyers were bored.

But well, these are just 2 eurocent worth of my own thoughts...