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0 pointsanthk7d ago0 comments

- OpenArena

- Chip's Challange and custom levels pack

- Freedoom+Blasmepher for Doom/Heretic

- LibreQuake

- Supertux2

- Oolite

- Kgoldminner/XScavenger with level sets

- Frozen Bubble

- Any X11/console/9front sokoban clone. Everyone reuses the same level set over and over.

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Closi7d ago

This list might just be survivor bias though - it only includes the projects where they didn’t get sued and taken down (either because the developer was ok with them, or because they strayed far enough into fair use).

There are clear counter examples - see Tengen vs Nintendo, Nintendo vs Palworld, Microsoft vs halo inspired games, Microsoft vs Minecraft clones. Most are settled out court. Examples that go to court tend to be from companies with budgets to fight, lots of projects will just get DMCA’d and won’t fight, or will back down after a legal letter.

Ultimately copyright and IP infringement is decided in the courts, and the rules aren’t entirely black and white.

anthkOP7d ago

The actual list at https://osgameclones.com it's so huge that literally invalidates any point stated by HN commenters ignoring that, yes, Giana Sisters for the C64 was taken down but after that several Mario shareware clones existed for PC and a few years later we even got Supertux and, in the 2000's, Secret Maryo Chronicles which got renamed in order to avoid any issues with "Mario" as a TM, but the gameplay was 99% the same of Super Mario World.

On software recreating something propietary:

- FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD... vs AT&T Unix.

- GNU+Linux or GNU+Hurd against propietary Unix kernels.

- Coreutils+Findutils+Sharutils... every tool reimplemented being propietary.

- Bash, GAWK, GCC, binutils, Clisp, SBCL, GNU GCJ+Classpath, Red, FreePascal+Lazarus, GNUStep+WMaker, LessTif, EMWM+Motif vs Irix' Maxx Desktop (still propietary, and from the 90's) Gaim, AMSN, 7zip, Haxima+Nahzgul (and Ultima it's still being sold at GOG), Supertux2, Supertuxkart, ReTux (very Wario like), Hexoshi (Metroid), SMC (Super Mario World), Pingus (Lemmings), XMMS/Xine cloning WinAmp and maybe PowerDVD (Xine with skins), WordTsar for Wordstar, Nano for propietary Pico (and Alpine for propietary Pine), BSD vi and Amiga vim for maybe propietary vi under AT&T/commercial Unix, Lincity and Lincity-NG for Simcity, FreeCiv against Civilization (it can use both the OG Civ rules and their custom ones), Frozen Bubble (I think the level set it's from the Neo Geo release), KGoldrunner and such for Lode Runner, Kapman for Pacman, every BSD shipping Tetris and Boggle, GNU Octave for Matlab....

The list example for both software and games being just reimplementation/clones of propietary tools goes on an on. Even DOS had propietary clones which had to reimplement the same interface as MSDOS because if not the tools written for it would just crash. Same commands, same output, same formating tools, same memory layout, they ran the same DOS binaries and drivers...

Closi6d ago

Giving a list of examples doesn’t mean this example is legal or would stand up in court.

Other than the fact that most of these are very different situations, but even if they were the same it is like saying “snorting coccaine is legal because I can give a list of celebrities that have done it and have not been arrested”

The examples that are similar - eg FreeCiv, imo probably survive because of the decisions and polices of the original publisher rather than some magical legal protection which allows you to make 1:1 copies without being sued.

TuxRacer isn’t really a copy of anything, and an OS or computer utility will likely be treated in a materially different way to a computer game by a court of law.

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