freeorion.com

[pd]

It just came to my attention, that a site with the domain freeorion [dot] com exists. The author's intentions are probably good, but it still feels a bit strange. I couldn't find any means to contact him, but if he reads this, it would be nice to comment on this. There is content on this site, that although been posted here, is not part of the project and has therefor not relation to freeorion.

Edit by Geoff: Remove hyperlink. We don't want to be giving free pagerank-boosting links to domain squatters, even if they appear benign now.

[eleazar]

You can find out who owns most web sites.
There's contact info for this one:

http://www.whois.net/whois_new.cgi?d=freeorion&tld=com

[Geoff the Medio]

If you do contact the registrant, ask them to add attributions for the content they've taken from freeorion.org to the FreeOrion project and/or particular artists.

For the Quick Play Guide and screenshots from the wiki, it should attribute the content to freeorion.org or the FreeOrion team, and note that it's released under the GFDL 1.2. (I wonder if that should actually be the CC-BY-SA 3.0 as well? I don't think we ever updated the wiki content license notifications or actually decided to use the preset GFDL 1.2...)

There are also some images on the site's Programmers / Artists Needed page that aren't from the actual game, so should be attributed to their creators specifically. I'm not sure exactly what pd means by "only exception" in the guidelines to contributing for contributing, but the stuff from this post are on that page but weren't put into the FreeOrion repository.

[IConrad]

Edit by Geoff: Remove hyperlink. We don't want to be giving free pagerank-boosting links to domain squatters, even if they appear benign now

That's why they invented nofollow tags. Too bad I can't figure a way to make it work in PHP on an individual comment basis.

Also -- this is interesting:

Are you a programmer or an artist. We need you. The game is still in the very early stages. Some of the rough draftwork is shown below. If you think you can help please checkout the developer oriented site http://www.freeorion.org.

Just my personal impression, but it seems like their heart is in the right place at this point in time. (The quickstart page also links to the .org site as well.)

[Geoff the Medio]

Just my personal impression, but it seems like their heart is in the right place at this point in time.

That may be, but it's still misrepresenting itself as an official project website. It may also have hidden forum-spam-style search engine optimization links in it, or may be intended to sit idle for a time, and then be updated later to have such spam.

(The quickstart page also links to the .org site as well.)

Thats not the same as attribution for copied content. It also serves to enhance the appearance of being part of the official website.

[OndrejR]

In future it may also contains advertisements(freeorion.org probably can the same?).

[pd]

He is talking about "we", when he doesn't seem to be part of "us". Also, that copyright note at the bottom of the page bothers me.

[...]I'm not sure exactly what pd means by "only exception" in the guidelines to contributing for contributing[...]

It's just meant to protect the artists. Content that is not distributed with the game, doesn't need to be shared using the same license. An artist might decide to just share it with this project, but might want to prevent others from (commercially) using it. This only applies to conceptual art.

[IConrad]

I stand corrected.

Re: the copyright -- thank goodness for GPL.

[Skaro]

Well, it should be pretty clear that this guy has ulterior motives.

You don't just create a site for someone else for the sake of being nice.

[Ryan Hamilton]

Hi,

I am the person that made freeorion.com. My name as yous see is Ryan Hamilton. I am very sorry I did not post sooner, I had intended to, but I made the site a few months ago, put up a preview and then got busy with other work. I thought I should clear up a few issues.

I made the site because I had some free time and I wanted to contribute back to an open source game. I have fixed the immediate issues, all artwork and content is now mentioned as copyright freeorion.org at the bottom. and I mention that the site was made by me.

I am very sorry but I am incredibly busy at the moment (notice the time of posting, 4am!!) and I think I will continue to be for a few weeks. When I eventually have time I hope to come back here and contribute more.

Thanks
Ryan

PS. I look forward to the game being "complete" someday

[pd]

Thanks for coming here. Unfortunately there are still some issues.

all artwork and content is now mentioned as copyright freeorion.org at the bottom.

Please see this page about the licenses we are using.

All images, besides the screenshots and the 3 planets are not part of the project. I'd like to ask you to remove them(all ships and characters). Feel free to add some recent images from the graphics board and dev blogs, though.

[Ryan Hamilton]

Regarding Licence I now say:
"Artwork & Content FreeOrion.org | Released under the the CC - Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence. "
I hope this is Ok??, if not please give me the exact wording you would like.

Images removed that you requested. I have added new concept art by Josh and linked back to both him and the thread they originated.
If this is not OK, please either give me some images you would like there, or I will remove the images entirely.

Sorry but after these changes I really can't afford to spend any more time on this, I am very busy at the moment.

Thanks
Ryan