Talk:Helbreath

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Is this game *actually* open source? Leaked code ain't the same thing. --James 05:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Unless something has recently changed, no. MaTrIx 00:41, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

No, however there is a project based on old source released before iENT had rights to it, ive updated the page to reflect that information. in all fairness the source was released (under the gpl) nearly 2 years after it was leaked so it was already out of date, but functional nontheless. JensenDied

Do you have documentation about this "release under the GPL"? Please provide it if you do. The source was not 'released' by the company but by a disgruntled employee, in the same way that more recent updates have been leaked, as noted in the article. Just because a copyrighted piece is accessible by someone does not make it lose the copyright nor does it make it "...released (under the gpl)..." Thank you for the discussion. WiseOldDude 23:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite baffled as to why you would think that the updates were released by a "disgruntled employee". In the world of private servers, everything obtained by one group is eventually "leaked" onto others. The only exception being files obtained by MOG but even though those were later sold to HB Nemesis, they were not obtained from any "disgruntled employee". Arislan 21:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll stick to the GPL as that is what you are interested in discussing. The code in the project is lacking any copyright notices, is dated in November 2001 (before iEnt entered the picture). regardless, lets say they still have right right to track down for copyrights that were never inplace, nor given to them for these files. the [ToS] from HB international basically imply that they cannot be used for commercial purposes. this defends private servers that do not accept any sort of monetary donations from their players, but the moment any money comes into the picture they are in violation. There is an anti-sub licenseing clause in HB International's ToS but there is no copyright as such in the sources other than what could be inferred by common sence that Simentech created HB. another note is that if HB Inter was so inclined they could have the project removed from sf.net as noted in their [ToS]. iEnt as not being the copyright holder wouldn't have this opportunity, and Simentech seems not to claim any works before 2003 "Copyright © 2003-2004 Siementech co., ltd." and leaves this souce from being owned anywhere other than the hb-online project, which from what ive found simentech could have actually taken the code and then ignored the copyleft leaving them in violation. the last part being rather stupid to even talk since the project itself was founded after this could have been feasable. Enjoy JensenDied 01:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I took a look at the GPL passage here on Wiki, "the copyright holder must give recipients the explicit permission to do these things" for something to come under the GPL. Where is the verification that the developer had done this? Is there a site I reference about this? WiseOldDude 04:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

well you got me there, thanks for finding that. All I got is that there is no copyright on Helbreath before 2003 based on iEnt getting permission and simentechs being stated from 2003-4. the lack of any copyright in what i found shows that it was either deliberatly removed, or that it wasn't being copyrighted yet. (I could not located any copyright information on HB Korea's site). if the latter is true there could be a debate as there wasnt a current copyright holder for those files. perhaps an attempt to contact helbreath korea/simentech on the matter would clear up my addition. JensenDied 05:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it is far more likely the copyright info was removed by the person who put the source on that ftp site. There is no need to have the listing to make the work copyrighted. We all know Siementech developed the game design, had the art done and did the programming. It was called 'common sense' by you that Siementech had the copyright of their material.

[edit] Legal Conclusions re: Private Servers

I've tagged two disputed sentences in the Private Servers section, but the entire section may need a POV review. I've had the misfortune to read more than my fair share of IP plaintiffs' cease & desist letters, settlement demands, and court-filed complaints-- documents written by IP plaintiffs' counsel for the purpose of advancing the client's point of view. This section's tone and language very much resemble those documents. It asserts broad legal conclusions about intellectual property, rather than neutrally presenting the conclusions of outside sources.

I've taken particular exception to the two assertions of trademark infringement, which I've tagged "verification needed." The facts, as stated, appear to refute this conclusion. "Use in commerce" is, by statute, a required element of trademark infringement in the United States. 15 USC §1114(1)[1]. Yet, this article describes these private servers as non-commercial in nature. ("... players choose to play on private servers by pure preference of not having to pay a fee...")

On the copyright side, there isn't quite the same problem, though I'd still like to see some change in tone. The hosts of private servers have a colorable fair use defense available to them against a copyright infringement claim. Their motives are non-commercial, and their impact on the copyright holder's business is unproven-- according to the sources cited so far. 17 USC §107[2]. On the other hand, their use-- copying all the code, including every update as it becomes available-- is anything but de minimis. A faithfully NPOV treatment of the question should therefore present both sides of the dispute, but assert neither the conclusion that the private servers are legal, nor the conclusion that they are illegal, as true.

As for whether the code was maliciously publicized, or derived in another way such as reverse engineering, it's hard to call it either way without a reliable source.

Hints on the NPOV style of writing can be found in Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Matt Fitzpatrick 18:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Point taken about the tone. I'm working on the verification of the points noted. The section on verifiability was interesting.

Adding POV-section template due to unresolved POV dispute. I'd do the heavy editing myself, but because I hold strong political views on this matter, I'm not confident I can improve on the neutrality. Hopefully, between POV-section and the cleanup taskforce, the article will attract some impartial attention soon. Matt Fitzpatrick 01:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I have attempted to restore some neutrality to the section in question. The issue of legality is fairly volatile. I think we must not take a side. Unless iEnt or Siementech gets a SUCCESSFUL COURT RULING against a private server and it is published and visible for all to see, there is no conclusion. You were right that the overall tone is that of a "cease and desist" letter. I have little doubt that the tone was introduced by iEnt themselves. I took a look at the Wikipedia entry for IEntertainment and it was entirely self-promotional in tone. It had to be edited to conform to standards. This raises the suspicion that iEnt will unscrupulously edit Wikipedia without regard for the project's seriousness or integrity to favour themselves. This cannot be allowed. Wikipedia is NOT a promotional site.--Arislan 04:15, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Even with a court ruling, that would be but one more fact to weigh, for or against. The article should continue to cover all significant viewpoints, per WP:NPOV, even if there's a disfavorable court decision or two.

Also, double check WP:AGF. POV alone isn't enough to start pounding the war drums. In fact, we should be encouraging involvement from potential primary sources! If someone has inside information on this topic, he or she should publish it in a credible and verifiable way outside Wikipedia. Then he or she, as well as the rest of us, is free to use that source to expand this article, without running afoul of WP:NOR.

Anyway, more to the point, I'm confident enough in my knowledge of trademark law, both infringement and dilution, to cut the claims about trademarks from the disputed section. I've read a lot about trademarks, but no serious commentator has ever suggested a practical or legal exception to the statutory requirement, for both infringement and dilution, of use "in commerce" by an alleged infringing or diluting party. At least not in the United States. I'll leave the copyright stuff alone, since the POV problems now appear to be gone. Matt Fitzpatrick 05:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I looked at this site: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci for the following information. I do not have page numbers listed as there were none on the online article.

"Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is “created” when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time." "If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date."

"The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U.S. law, although it is often beneficial."

"The 1976 Copyright Act attempted to ameliorate the strict consequences of failure to include notice under prior law. It contained provisions that set out specific corrective steps to cure omissions or certain errors in notice. Under these provisions, an applicant had 5 years after publication to cure omission of notice or certain errors. Although these provisions are technically still in the law, their impact has been limited by the amendment making notice optional for all works published on and after March 1, 1989."

Based on this the information in the Helbreath Wiki article asserting some freedom to use the material due to its not having a copyright notice seems to be incorrect. The article should be updated to reflect that those who used the material may have beleived they had a right but seemed to be uninformed about the nature of copyright protection.

I understand what you guys are saying here, however i have a question. What about the things that the coders for Private server have added to their servers. There is many things we have added over the years to our sources that the official server have since added to their own. Looking at their sources it seems many of these things area a direct cut and paste of our code. I can only be 100% sure about the things i have added myself tho. Wich is nothing compared to the work of Snoopy and the eqproject Crew. Not that anyone would but if copyright is automatic as it seems to me you are saying, then shouldnt our sections of the sources then be automatically copyrighted and therefor give us the right to also take action against them?

Personally i think Simmentec dont get involved because they see Private servers as develpoment servers (since they take our Ideas and Code) and also as cheep/free labor since much of it has basicaly been cut and pasted. Hell, their mods even have the same bugs lol.

If you check the Helbreath USA site and their bugs list, it often mentions "source needed" as if iEntertainment doesnt posess the sources and rely on Simmentec to fix the most minor of bugs. How does this effect their licensing? I would think they only have rights to the compiled versions of the files licensed to them by Simmentec and have no right to demand Private servers who have been working with their own soruces since 2001 "cease and desist". --- Jim

[edit] Linux ports

Removed section on Linux ports because it cannot be verified in any way from any reputable source. Please reintroduce ONLY if verifiable citation or source is found.--Arislan 21:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, I did a little wikisleuthing on this one. Simple69 was who originally added the text. I found a related message on Simple69's talk page, found Simple69's reply on Hahnchen's talk page archive, then took a quick trip to the Helbreath hacking site at www.unadvised.net which Simple69 gives as his source. I can verify that open source code is being distributed there, but it's packaged to compile in a Windows IDE, not with Linux programming tools (gcc etc.). Although a Linux distribution could be prepared from that source, it'd be inaccurate to call what I found a Linux port.

So, if there's an actual Linux distribution somewhere that I overlooked, Simple69, please link! I'd love to see one. Otherwise, we'll have to leave this deleted text out for now. Matt Fitzpatrick 01:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I have been able to get the servers available from www.unadvised.net to run under the emulation of wine on the recent distribution of Ubuntu Edgy Eft under me test however I could not get the Client to load to a usable state, granted these trials were under a virtual machine which itself could be part of the client failure, or incomplete emulation on the part of wine and the clients usage of Direct Input/Display as shown by the source. The server running and lack of any outputted errors from the client show that it may be possible, but I am unable to show proof of a runnable client under Linux at this time.

The client does rely on a CxImage which claims to run under Linux natively seemed to have issues during compilation so I was not able to progress with a native binary for Linux JensenDied 08:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)