[SOLVED] Is Ok to put "abandonware" on the AUR?

Question

Recently, I found out that searching "abandon" on AUR, lots of results with "abandonia" on their description show up.
now, even the abandonia website state the following:
What is Abandonware? Is it legal?
Wikipedia: "Abandonware is computer software which is no longer being sold or supported by its copyright holder. Alternately, the term is also used for software which is still available, but on which further support and development has been deliberately discontinued."
Since the software is no longer sold or supported, the copyright holders are not directly harmed in any way. This is why abandonware sites are, for the most part, ignored by the law.
The distribution of copyrighted software however is, and will allways be, illegal!
Pretty much means "well... is illegal, but hey, we don't affect the author and the law ignore us!".
IF those games where shareware/trial versions OR freeware but-not-open-source games, it would be a different story. I know those are OK. (since the author allows -or even foments- distribution)
But they are abandoned FULL versions of non-freeware games.
so I want to know if is ok to keep those packages on the AUR. Maybe is actually ok, since there is not rule against that or something?
if that is the case, how about more recent software? it would be against the rules if someone uploads a full, cracked version of a coreldraw to some site, and a wine based PKGBUILD on the AUR to automatically download it and install it? is that ok?
I don't think is ok. I don't think it should be ok.
The guidelines (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AU … Guidelines) don't say anything about abandonware or warez.
maybe it should be specified.
Last edited by chris_l (2011-10-29 00:44:26)

Answer 1

This thread is going to go on for pages and pages, then the mods are going to lock it cause they're sick of people not "getting it" and don't want to deal with it anymore.  But while I have the chance, I'll throw in my $0.02.
FOSS is built on two things: freedom and community.  With freedom comes the ability to look through all the code and know exactly what your software is doing, and with community comes the common interest in sharing code, collaborating, etc.  Piracy is just about the same thing, but with law sprinkled everywhere in-between.  Freedom to copy and download whatever you'd like, and all the information you can handle, especially when it comes to where you can copy and download even more data.  Combine the similarities with FOSS junkies that believe in a free world, and you'll find many that'll pirate software without caring because of their opposition about closed source software and copyrights (although many others just find no interest or passion in proprietary code).
So we have two matters at hand here, the piracy, and the information about the piracy.  Stealing software is illegal, but if you knew a website online that sold bootleg copies, is your knowledge dangerous?  Think of it like locksmiths: they make a living off helping people who are locked out of their cars, homes, etc., but if they had the same knowledge without holding the same professional license, would they be a criminal simply because they know about tumblers and their experience with picking tools?  Or even a very common interest among us: IT security.  If you understood that you shouldn't depend on MD5 algorithms due to MD5 collisions, are you a cracker?  Where is the line drawn?
In my personal opinion (as a US citizen), your knowledge is a constitutional right.  Technical abilities should not be frowned upon, but encouraged.  The most important difference is the other side of that fence: using that knowledge.  Knowing wireless security vs. cracking networks that aren't yours.  Knowing how to count cards vs. actually doing it.  Or how about one we are depended on every day: knowing the trade secrets at the company we work for vs. exploiting them.  That line is drawn right down the middle of where these two concepts merge: trust.
Now let's get into the conversation about piracy and the AUR.  Informational side: there is nothing wrong at all about taking propriety, copyrighted code and nicely packing up a pacman-installable file for you and others that legally support the company's software.  You're moving files, writing scripts, and compressing them in a way that makes life easier for you.  Epic isn't going to come after you for moving Unreal Tournament to a $pkgdir directory ... that doesn't make any sense.
So let's push the lines a little further.  Say the UT CD you have was stepped on by a friend.  At this point, you have one valid license without any installation media.  This means that you are legally in the right to download the installation media and install it on one computer.  In this case, you created a PKGBUILD that downloaded the game from the Internet.  This is still legal.  This is a rare exception that is usually a sorry excuse for pirating a game than recovering from a loss, but again, still legal.
But--allowing my opinion to come in here--it stops there.  If there was a plethora of PKGBUILDs up on the AUR that linked to copyrighted software, a realistic person would understand that it's there to help pirates.  If this was the case, there really wouldn't be much of a difference from the AUR and a torrent site.  Hell, PKGBUILDs could even download from a torrent file as part of the build() function.  Until a law is broken, it's not illegal, but any bit of information is just a pyramid wrapped of its own red tape you have to cut through before you get to the top, and then you've realized it was all to steal something.
Personally, I can't stand the idea that torrent sites are getting taken down left and right because they contain no data, just information, and free information should be rejoiced, not discouraged.  But stealing software is nothing but illegal, and illegal activities should be stopped and accounted for.  The grey area is huge and there's no way you can draw a line through it, unlike having that unique skill or knowing trade secrets from working for that company.  And for the same reason this thread will eventually get closed by people who can't take it anymore, so will our false sense of freedom of information to pirate.
Last edited by synthead (2011-10-28 01:03:29)