Warhead Stroll is copyleft

Hi there!

I'm sorry for the rant in the previous devlog of this game. It wasn't epic enough.

And now to the news!

I got approached (via my Play Store email) by someone working in HappyTube, which is a mobile publisher. Great for me, you might think! I will finally be able to be crazy rich, eat caviar and lobsters in private jets and stuff!

But there is a problem. I don't like seafood that much Um. HappyTube's reputation is, for the lack of a better term, a tiny bit sketchy.

What did I do? Did I not respond at all, like a sensible person? Did I start the negotiations at $4000, like a wacky entrepreneur?

Did I go to their headquarters in Prague, storm into their offices, and ask to meet their manager? I heard public transportation was pretty good in central Europe, by the way. The night trains over there are looking pretty good too. That's a shame they almost disappeared from my country. Although, I heard that night trains will come back, but are they going to be even close to my hometown? I don't think so, most people use them for their holidays, and I'm not close to the path of amazingly scenic destinations. And I also mostly use trains during the day, for short trips, so this doesn't really apply. There is a historical vapor train not far from here though, but it's exclusively touristic, and it doesn't connect to any other station. At least, for now. I should ask my MP or senator about this. Will they even agree? It's been decades since rails were installed in my country. As a result, most of the train traffic increase is on existing lines, which is not ideal, but at least it isn't decreasing further. Hey, I didn't tell you about what I discovered yesterday! There's a bus line going right through my village. Two separate bus lines actually. And in less than an hour, you get to the two biggest towns nearby! That's great, because I don't have a driver's license, and my e-bike (and my legs) has less range than that. Or it could have enough range, but I would need to recharge at the destination.

Anyway, what were we talking about?

Oh, yeah, HappyTube.

So I replied to them that the game was free and open-source software. Well, it wasn't really free as in freedom until that commit a few minutes ago, because I didn't put any license on the GitHub repo (so it was a generous, but still full, copyright). Now, as you may have recalled by this post's title, Warhead Stroll is copyleft.

For the art, I choose a CC-BY-SA license, and for the code, a GNU GPLv3. I already dual-licensed two of my projects before, it should be fine.

So I told HappyTube about my FOSS choice, and basically "feel free to publish my game, don't forget to keep it open, I'm looking forward to your public fork of it" or something. But as my email dashed through the 4G network in the direction of the Czech Republic (I'm assuming it changes networks at some point. It doesn't sound possible to send even a few kilobytes of email through a single network more than 1500 km away, unless you're crossing the ionosphere, and in that case the bandwidth should be noticeable. Or maybe my mobile internet provider is using satellites under the hood? Unlikely, given it's not Starlink or any other low-orbit service. By the way, I think a great underrated idea for internet communications is balloons. It's pretty low-tech stuff compared to satellites, so it should be low-cost too. And they're already quite a ways towards low orbit, so you don't need many of them. It reminds me of the optical telegraph. Other advantages include: no space debris, easily repairable, weather possibilities, installing wind turbines on them, etc. But I concede, it would be very easy to shoot down in the case of a war. And it would generate lots of UFO reports. And worse starlight visibility on sunset and sunrise, and advertisements will of course be plastered on them. Finally, you need to choose between two engineering challenges of endurance: holding a lighter-than-air gas, or keeping air heated. But at least, the idea looks worthy of consideration, at least to me. Do you know anyone in NASA I can talk with?

Anyway, we were talking about the email I sent. Sorry. End parentheses: ). I thought: was it a dumb decision to make?

Maybe my game will be ripped off anyway, without even publishing the source! Maybe they'll make hundreds of millions of euros (quick check: their country is technically in the process of entering the eurozone, so maybe they'll make millions of <local currency> in the meantime). No long rant about currency, sorry. I'm trying to keep it brief!!!

But that's the thing with free software. Even if I didn't reply at all, they could steal my game, but they were nice enough to contact me (or they didn't make the research). And I basically answered: "I don't really like the predatory practices of mobile marketplaces, and you're kinda part of it, so I'm offering you a chance to morally improve".

Okay, this sounds a bit silly now that I write it aloud. Does anyone even say "write aloud"? Words aren't vocally expressed in that case! I don't even use a voice recorder, I use a keyboard. Maybe this applies if you're using a screen reader. In that case, congratulations, because it doesn't sound easy to bear with me for all those long ranty paragraphs. This rant is shorter, phew.

So yeah, I was feeling optimistic today. That's the gist of it. The (GitHub) Gist of it! Hah! Sorry for the pun.

By the way, as the experts among you have guessed, although I don't think this is a valid line of reasoning to be honest, I'm preparing for the NaNoWriMo. Yes, those rants allow me to practice my English. This post is already over a thousand words long, and I usually aim for 5000 words during the month, although I often go a bit beyond. Normally, novelist should write 50000 words, which is ten times more words. But I'm not a novelist am I? And I have a full time occupation now, how would I manage to cram my days to write 1600+ words in the evening, or early morning, or night? Well, that's how! By making rants, yes. It doesn't look healthy to make 50k words of rant though, or even to read all of it. Speaking of which, are you okay, reader? Do you need a glass of water? By the way! My tap water has traces of white stuff lately for some reason. It doesn't have any taste and I'm fine so that's alright, but I'll try to keep the water heater on, even when I'm not here, and see if that changes anything. I already have a habit of bottling tap water and putting it in the fridge, so the stuff disappears and that's even less of a problem. But you know, just in case! Oh no, this paragraph is doing it again. Well.

HappyTube hasn't replied yet. I'll edit this post when (or if) they do.

See you on the next one!