Re: Gnome Stones [was Re: gnome-games 2.14.0]

[Callum McKenzie <callum spooky-possum org>]

On Sat, 2006-04-08 at 14:39 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> Lack of maintainance alone is probably reason enough to discontinue the
> game but I would be interested to know more about the copyright issues
> raised as I did not see it mentioned on the mailing list.  Maybe something
> could be done to clarify the issue and maybe even correct it?
> 

I was supplied with information[1] that indicated that both some of the
levels and some of the code was of dubious origin. It appears quite
likely that some of the levels were direct copies of the originals and
the copyright status of that is dubious to say the least. On top of this
I was also informed that the some of the code was probably derived from
code with a very dubious history (although this was probably done in
good faith). 

Since we'd already removed some sounds when we realised that they had
probably been recorded from an emulator playing the original game I
didn't feel I could give the original authors the benefit of the doubt.

The horrid code[2] structure and lack of maintenance just made the
decision even easier.

Hopefully that sheds some light on it. Basically nothing can be done to
resuscitate the original package since the problems are so intertwined
with it.

 - Callum

[1] I'm not going to say who since the original approach wasn't public
and I got the impression it was deliberately not public.
[2] It was a classic example of clever, but unmaintainable, code.