Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Game Discussion => Classic Roguelikes => Topic started by: mouser on January 13, 2020, 02:37:45 PM
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Hello,
I have just discovered Rogue and I was wondering about its licensing status. The word I have got on the streets is that original Rogue was non-free software (because it excluded distributing the game for profit.) Hence, many Linux/Unix distributions refuse to package it.
However:
rlgallery.org has many versions of Rogue derived from the Rogue Restoration Project. It looks like they are licensed under a 3-clause BSD license. As far as I understand, the Rogue Restoration Project based their distribution on the original code of the Unix port of Rogue. This does not make sense to me, unless the original Rogue source code was relicensed at some point and the Rogue Restoration Project took it then. If the latter is the case, could Rogue be distributed from a strict FOSS Linux/BSD repository?
Rogue Clone III seems to be licensed under a 3-clause BSD license too. However, Debian distributes it from the non-free repository, and OpenBSD just refuses to include it. Is there an actual problem preventing the distribution of Rogue Clone III from a free software repository as of today?
TL;DR: Is there any actual licensing problem preventing the inclusion of the original Rogue or a close Rogue recreation from being included in the distribution of an strict free-software repository?
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It looks like some files in Rogueclone III have copyright clausules that forbid for-profit use.