Fully FOSS version (data licensing)?

[Julius]

So a while ago we had this discussion about data-licensing, which sadly isn't fully FOSS compatible so far (some CC-by-NC etc.):

viewtopic.php?f=81&t=6448

But a large majority would have preferred a fully FOSS version (kind of a given on this forum ).

So I guess if someone would make a new fork, this would be one of the things to "fix".

To my knowledge, right now, (and I'm not sure about some), things that have weird licenses are:

5 VDrift cars (3S, 360, CT, M3, TC6) actually quite few to throw out (360 and CT can be replaced but that needs work).
4 VDrift tracks (nobody will miss), actually Vdr3-dirt3 is from Torcs so I guess maybe 3.
All car sounds (basically just 2), except electric (UV,BV).
All skies, have a clause to not be sold, I'm assuming here CC-BY-SA-NC. Not even imaginable for me to replace them with anything.
OGRE trees (IIRC: 2 trees, 1 grass, 2 ferns, 1 palm) with clause to be used only with Ogre. Could be replaced without much trouble.
Super Racing cars (S1,N1) and many wheels, IDK which license, asked and didn't get reply, I'm assuming MIT like the project (might be wrong).

Here in this thread we can collect resources for replacing the non-Free ones.

[Julius]

One of the main problems seems to be the high resolution sky textures (currently NC licensed).

Some quick info. The older skies were about 8000 resolution (for 360 deg. view), the new ones were about 12-16000, which downscaled to 4096 is purely awesome.
Having a skybox with 1024 cubemap, gives about 4x so 4096 already, and without downscaling. And those would have to have no scenery just sky (which fails in all humus pictures).

It is indeed a bit difficult to find non-NC creative commons 360° sky images of sufficiently high resolution. Typically they are used for HDR imaging.

However here seems to be a nice "free", meaning CC-by, of which at least the first three seem suitable for making a game skybox:
https://hdrihaven.com/bundle.php?b=free_bundle

The resolution is 16384 x 8192, so at least as good as what is currently included in SR.

Edit: Here are some others under CC0, but I am not quite sure about the resolution of the ones further down: http://giantcowfilms.com/category/hdrs/ (full resolution 29184 x 14592 seems to be available on request according to the FAQ).

For converting in six skybox images one can probably use this Blender script (not tried myself): http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthr ... -Converter

(In case you wonder: due to large file sizes I can not work on this myself for the foreseeable future as my Internet connection here is severely volume limited My current computer is also a bit slow for running SR.)

[eugeneloza]

Seems that OpenGameArt also offers a good choice of decent skyboxes
http://opengameart.org/art-search?keys=skybox
(there are several high-quality cc-by licensed packs consisting of many skyboxes)

[Julius]

Yeah I guess a fork would not need to follow the original developer's very high quality standards in this regard. But I sort of agree that in the age of 4k screens, a skybox should be as high quality as possible.

For the space maps, this http://alexcpeterson.com/spacescape/ could be used to make really high resolution ones.

[Wuzzy]

Are the original authors of the files known?
Have they been contacted yet? If we're lucky, they might just grant us permission to re-use this stuff under a libre license, given that this project will benefit from it. Especially for skyboxes.

What's the problem with VDrift stuff? What's the license / where can I find it?
Again, we might just be lucky here with asking for permission.

Anyway, I think the VDrift tracks can be deleted safely anyway (if they haven't already). Only Vdr3-dirt3 is good quality-wise, but it's not a problem if this track has to go as well.

Obviously, the hardest challenge will be the skyboxes, this will be the most important thing for a fully libre version of SR.
Finding replacements for the car sounds shouldn't be too hard.

Throwing out the cars will hurt a lot and is probably not feasible anyway since many challenges depend on particular cars. So finding replacements here will also be a challenge.

All the other stuff might be “sacrificed” if no replacements can be found. It will still hurt, but the game will still be playable.

[drummyfish]

Sorry for reviving an old topic but the idea of freeing SR reemerged in the recent release thread.

I personally don't know too much about SR, I haven't played it mainly because of the mentioned issue that it's not fully libre, but it definitely looks great and I think it's a shame a libre version doesn't exist yet.

I would like to ask the people involved in SR whether it would be too difficult to create a script that would automatically remove/replace non-free assets such as the NC textures and proprietary car models. I am not talking about a hard fork of the project but rather a relatively simple way of automatically generating a libre version of the game with a script, i.e. a soft fork in the style of Linux-libre that just removes proprietary blobs from Linux. The nice thing here is that you don't have to hard delete non-free assets as with a FOSS project you can simply have two versions of it, you don't have to give up the current version and risk losing popularity of the mainstream audience. It could literally be just a single bash script (there's probably not even a need to consider Windows here) you add to the codebase and that can optionally be run before compilation, I think it's something that wouldn't be so difficult to create for someone with the knowledge of the codebase.

This could have great benefits for the popularity of the game itself. As I said the non-free assets are what's keeping me -- and I think a few other people who greatly care about freedom -- from actually playing the game. A free version could further be included in places that forbid proprietary games such as LibreGameWiki or Debian repositories, which would again increase the game's popularity just by increasing its visibility. Remember that many people may search for games through package managers, all Debian users could potentially be offered to install this game without having to download and compile it manually.

Personally I wouldn't mind a lower asset quality or even "less content", the fork may be even unofficial and not so greatly polished, anything's better than nothing for now.

Anyway that's basically it, you can take this as a feature suggestion of someone who would like to try SR

[CryHam]

And how come, you didn't see this recent, sticky topic about removing non CC data:
https://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic ... 81&t=18532
that has started efforts by me to remove non CC data from SR, and yes I also want to go into official repositories with SR.

Isn't very high priority for me though, since I'm more of a programmer than an artist and I have little experience dealing with new sounds or new skies etc. I'm still trying to find a good replacement for those 2 jungle trees.
Also I started moving to Ogre-Next which needs huge effort.

[QwertyChouskie]

You might consider using some jungle tree models from SuperTuxKart, they're of a reasonable quality and fully libre. https://supertuxkart.net/Media_Repo