New “Super Easy” difficulty for campaign.

Promising to hear. As a noob I couldn't figure this game out at all -- I probably still would have trouble since it's so different mechanically from anything I've ever played.

Add “LOD Distance” Graphics option, to adjust texture sharpness at distance (defaults to “High”).

Did they upgrade the Textures? Lots of people have success with AI upscale, If they added a toggle between "old school" and "new" it could visually be very distinct and look really good.

Add Flatpak builds (for Linux).

This is always really good, sometimes the repo version of FOSS games like 0ad is broke -- I've had to use Flatpak to workaround these kinds of issues often enough.

Support for bidirectional text using fribidi.
Improve Cobra AI yet again (balances against defensive / system research when 1v1 on high oil maps).
Show the rank a unit will have if it were produced next.
Add console message when limits change.
Update campaign balance (and fixes) for: Alpha 2, Alpha 6, later Beta missions, Beta-end, Gamma 2.
+ Lots of bug fixes and multiplayer balancing changes.

I'm new to the series but I would love to see this grow and become a staple of FOSS gaming in the same way Julius and Augustus have done an amazing job on bringing Caesar III to 2022 or OpenRCT2.

My radar is on full sweep for good RTS, It's a shame Stargus didn't get fleshed out and revisioned more -- it would have been a stomper. Good to see people giving love to their favorite series.

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Let's use this opportunity to support Federated platforms.

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Prism huh? :whistle: :whistle: :whistle:

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Quoting: cprn

Quoting: ElectricPrism[...]3. The Legal Angle

On #3 -- the Legal Angle -- strictly speaking there is nothing wrong with charging money for GPL software.[...]

There are two types of copyrights - I'm not sure what's the legal term in English but one type is money related and the other one is bragging rights. You can never get rid off bragging rights - you're the author and you cannot "sell" or "give away" being an author.

I'm not really sure what you're referencing or which region of the world.

Quoting: cprnSo no, strictly speaking it's not okay, to just "redistribute" the project and take money for it.

I know it seems shitty, but people charge to redistribute FOSS all the time.

ZorinOS ( https://zorin.com/os/pro/purchase/ [External Link] ) is a distro which packages and sells collections of free software.

Ardour ( https://community.ardour.org/download?platform=win&architecture=x86_64&type=compiled [External Link] ) sells copies of its software when you select Windows or Mac installation.

ElementaryOS had a paywall to download their OS ( And then all of you flipped out on them )

Ubuntu has a paywall for their OS download

RedHat charges yearly licenses and the Linux Kernel doesn't flip out on them for it.

FlatHub could easily have a free repository with [ slow speed ] and one with [ fast speed ] and throttle the slow one and sell access to the [ fast speed ] legally to make a quick buck -- the same goes for any Linux distro with repos. It would be 100% legal.

There's really not much difference between a maintainer who repackages for Steam or a FOSS Game and then shoves it into the AUR ( https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/0ad-git [External Link] ), or Debian ( https://packages.debian.org/stable/0ad [External Link] )

Both are repackaging and redistributing.

Redistribution of FOSS is protected.

Making money is protected by the GPL.

Quoting: cprnIt'd have to be "redistributed" under a different name and with at least some (if not all) media files replaced or missing.

Not really. If there were a AppImage and they simply redistributed it without modification AFAIK that would fulfill all obligations just fine.

Quoting: cprnOn top of that a clear attribution to original product would have to be made.

This is a moral argument, which directly contradicts the part you wrote before ("It'd have to be "redistributed" under a different name") -- which go ahead and argue it, i'm not going to disagree -- but again from my original post I prefer to stick to the legal requirements.

I know it seems shitty that the GPL is this way, but it's actually FUCKING AMAZING and without these freedoms we might as well be in a alternative walled garden hellscape.

Have some faith in the devs that they will work things out in their own particular way, and if they are smart -- they will see that people DO want to play their game on Steam and they WILL absolutely plug that hole and fill that void -- if they had done that to begin with, this could have never happened. Hopefully they remedy that.

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There are a few angles to this.

1. The Moral / Ethical Angle

2. The Socially Acceptable Angle.

3. The Legal Angle

On #3 -- the Legal Angle -- strictly speaking there is nothing wrong with charging money for GPL software.

In TL;DR; the GPL pretty much says "If you change a GPL thing, you MUST publish your code changes to SAID thing under the same license."

I'm not sure if there is a prohibition clause that prevents people from "re-distributing", or even asking money for the re-distribution. Again those would be #1 and #2 problems, not #3 as we are analyzing using strict perspective.

From everything that I'm reading the names Wildfire Games and 0 AD don't have a formal copyright either, so legally it's not like they can fall back on that protection.

I'm not sure if the uploader are even claiming they are themselves "Wildfire Games", or simply saying "This was made by wildfire games" with their attribution.

In any case #3 doesn't really matter because #1 and #2 will sort it out and Steam is adaptive to new problems and not some rigid bureaucratic machine that functions poorly.

In the words of Gabe Newell "Piracy is almost always a service problem"

So by that token, I think [ The Real ] WildFire Games should be looking to "fill the void" in the market and publish 0 AD themselves, I understand they may not feel ready -- but sometimes a swift kick in the ass can be a wake up call -- nobody is ready for the next stages in life -- by giving it your best YEET it is the way to success.

It worked for ConcernedApe when I told him before [ Beta ] of StardewValley that he needed to postpone Multiplayer until after 1.0 and give it his best shot -- he's an absolute millionaire and world famous now.

Life is not a dress rehearsal -- do what counts the most here in the now.

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Throw on some velcro for a back mount and you're set.

I could see these manufactures making various cartridge "JetPacks" for the Deck. A lot of people would buy these.

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My money is that Index 2 will be called Neon Prime and essentially be a all-in-one VR Headset running SteamOS v3 / v4.

To me the name Neon is a reference to the early days of Vector based video games and the Nintendo VR headset of the 80s/90s and The Neon Age. And Prime "an integer greater than 1 whose only factors are 1 and itself."

Therefore the Neon Prime IMO will be the name for Index 2, but it will be different than Index in the same way the Steam Deck is analogous to the Steam Controller v2.

Valve has a hard-on for innovation and new technical achievements & voyaging into new consumer spaces -- and so they never really make the same thing twice (Although I fully expect to see another Steam Living Room Console, and series of SteamOS products like GDP Win and other manufacturers that want to join the SteamDeck hype party.)

I could be wrong, but this is the best guess from my "gut" feeling.

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I love this

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These are confusing times.

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Quoting: StalePopcornAs far as computing is concerned, thank God for Linux for end users—true freedom, true choice. IMHO

Big THANK YOU to everyone in Linux, the digital freedom of humanity is made possible because of all of us. We may have even averted a Digital Dark Age and incalculable disparity & suffering in the future because of what we've done here today in the now.

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