Programmings...

[spudtater]

I'm at it again! Sokoban (a block-pushing puzzle) for mobile phones. Level data shamelessly ripped off an online version.

Install (JAR)
JAD, source code

Let me know if you've had a play of it. I crave feedbacks!
Also, if anybody wants to have a go at crafting a level, please leave a comment.

Comments

[brucec.livejournal.com]

I don't have a mobile phone at the moment so I can't play it, but I have had a look at the source. Just out of interest have you decided that the GPLv3 is a good license to use, or did you use it just because it's the "latest and greatest"? I'm interested because I've read recently that FreeBSD at least isn't going to upgrade their gcc or binutils etc to newer versions simply because they've moved to GPLv3 which is too restrictive.

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

Is it that GPLv3 is too restrictive, or are there simply license compatibility issues? The compatibility diagram gives me a headache, quite frankly.

I used v3 simply because that was what the FSF recommends. I haven't heard any concrete criticisms of it so far, so had no reason not to.

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

Further to the last comment: it appears that most criticisms of v3 do indeed revolve around its suitability for current, rather than future, projects. For example Ted T'so says:

"I think [the latest draft is] much better. I may use it in my userspace community programs. The Free Software Foundation did listen. This version is much better. Props to Eben Moglen and company for making it better, but it still has problems and it's not that much better than the GPLv2. Moving the current Linux kernel would take at least six months of arguing and work and it's just not worth it."

— Forget about Linux going GPLv3, Linux-Watch, emphasis mine

If you have any more info about the BSD developers' complaints, let me know.

[brucec.livejournal.com]

From a recent mailing list thread "When gcc43 is expected to be in base?":

[...]
Nor is there anything wrong with the GPLv3 license-- it's well-crafted
and handles certain technical issues resulting from varied legal
systems quite well compared to most other licenses (eg, clause 17 for
many European jurisdictions which do not permit one to completely
disclaim liability), *provided* one is working on completely open
systems.

However, anyone who needs to do things with cryptography and signing
is going to find GPLv3 clauses 3 and 6 unworkable. FreeBSD (and
NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc) are attractive for people building embedded
systems because they are (mostly) not GPL(v2)-encumbered, and adopting
GPLv3 code would make that problem worse.

Also http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/bsd-guru/the-freebsd-foundation-on-gpl3-18770 and http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/bsdl-gpl/article.html

It's a shame so many people are switching to GPLv3 because it's going to make commercial software development harder. I know one of the things I like about VxWorks is that it has many BSD commands - after being told many times by colleagues that "VxWorks isn't UNIX" (when I complained that "ls" didn't work) I found they'd basically lifted the FreeBSD 6 network stack and dumped it into their product. Finding that was quite wonderful.

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

I can't make heads or tails of clause 3, unfortunately. Something to do with the DMCA?

Clause 6 seems reasonable, though. The source code must be made available when a product is distributed — this is in line with any other GPL-licensed product. If the firmware is updateable, then the method for updating it must be made obvious to the end user (i.e. no secret passwords, etc.) There is no clause stating that the equipment to update it must be made available. The license makes sure that the product must not fail to work solely because the firmware has been updated. This does not mean that doing so cannot void any warranty — in fact it specifically says: "the requirement to provide Installation Information does not include a requirement to continue to provide support service, warranty, or updates
for a work that has been modified or installed by the recipient"