I would prefer that this become the standard for software, as a whole, to be open source after a while. Because there is a sustainability aspect, just like the rest of the tools in our world.

For example, a manual drill has no real draw backs it will always run. An electric drill with a cord, will likely always run and electrical components can be traced and sourced rather easily. A drill that was designed to use with a battery, will not always run, and has software/firmware with some other limitations likely buried in the software.

The moment support is dropped, it should be released to open source to allow others interested to maintain it. Such as with the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 Ti... no longer supported with driver updates (outside of "security updates"). The firmware should be supported by the people if the company doesn't want to support it, it still is an excellent card even 10 years later...

MMO or not, source code should just be released. Patents are not forever, source code shouldn't be either. Though patent might be too long as well. 15/20 years worked when things developed slowly, but now days its outdated within years and could benefit other advancements.

Documentation? In the video game industry? Surely you jest.

I don't think they're saying exclude them, but expand the legislation to include a common scenario.

This is definitely the most defensible position. I'm sure others want stronger protections, but taking lawsuits off the table for any item no longer for sale (be it a game, other software, hardware, media, etc) would make a ton of sense.

No one can reasonably claim to be harmed in such a scenario. Enshrine abandonware into law.

It's currently accessible, but I'm sure they will start adding whatever roadblocks they can. e.g. Requiring attestation before running game, keeping some logic in server side which will be sent only to clients which pass the attestation, requiring platforms which grant more protections etc.

>> They need to make the server binaries available, along with client functionality to let you choose a server.

> Game companies are not going to give you their source code.

Okay but what about the thing they actually proposed?

> Game companies are not going to give you their source code.

I don't know if you misinterpreted my comment or if you're strawmanning, because I didn't say anything about source code.

Well then they can simply not shut down the old games.

> Software might become de facto open source with AI decomp anyway

Agreed.

> That's never going to happen. Game companies are not going to give you their source code.

We don't need them to; AI can reverse engineer most shit now.

Even if US lobbying tries to hamper that, China will accelerate it.

> That's never going to happen. Game companies are not going to give you their source code.

Sure they will. They can be forced to by the government which is society's monopoly on violence.

> but we have to be realistic.

No we don't. We can just force companies to do it, using the threat of the law.

And yet the clean room reverse engineering loophole remains in effect in the US.

It just used to take a lot of human labor, but LLMs are closing that gap. Fast.

How is that working out for the mp3 algorithm or bluray decryption?

The OSS community just laughs at algo patents. There was never any ability to enforce them at the pre-AI scale. Post-AI the corpos have no chance. They lost.

As long as it is legal in at least one country, the code will be out there and models will train on it. The ship on IP has already sailed. The moat is gone.

I already have built multiple confidential compute operating systems from 386 bytes of machine code all the way up with many novel and world-first features using exclusively consumer hardware I personally own, without any internet reliance, on my own property. Low level kernel and compiler debugging all with models that will run on old GPUs you can buy on ebay right now for under $500.

The way most people use AI, lighting money on fire, is a skill issue. You can build anything cheaply now if you generally know how computers work at a low level and can tell models exactly what to do.

> Indie developers can probably avoid killing games the most easily

They can and they should. I wouldn't want someone to lose their livelihood because they didn't rigorously test a product they made and released for fun.

What about steam relay? Any APIs at all? I think a revenue floor is simpler and more future proof.

Maybe in one aspect but it also raises the question, "Why is Congress concerned with details like this?"

Just trying to point out what could be the opposition for this, not that it's a bad thing to pass.

I agree. I think this is why lobbyists will be flooding this guy very soon. They don't want the door cracked.

I doubt it will become law either way.

Congress.gov says Rep. Ritchie Torres has sponsored 171 bills since 2021 and only one became a law, five passed the House and most of those were under Democrat majority. [1]

[1] https://www.congress.gov/quick-search/legislation?congressGr...

> So every week when World of Warcraft goes down for maintenance for a couple of hours. Blizzard should have to forfeit all of the subscribers money, since it is unusable for more than 5 minutes?

Yes. That's exactly what I wrote.

The online component is a tough sell, but for anything with single player it should be as simple as allow the binary to still run / download?

Or they can sell a product that doesn't have artificial and arbitrary self destruct dates.

He represents a poverty-stricken district. Nobody should give a fuck about gamers until their basic needs are sorted.

I know some teams don't let work out-prioritize the party planning committee.

Bigger

I sincerely don't understand this mentality. Legislators consider more than one bill per legislative session. We can (and must!) push along multiple axes, otherwise we will always be behind right?

> the rule of law is crumbling in real-time.

Why would the people in charge focus on this? They consider it a feature, not a bug.

If we never passed normal somewhat mundane legislation in "unprecedented times," we wouldn't have passed anything new since September 2001.

> but it seems like a strange thing to focus on as our democracy and the rule of law

Society is improved one issue at a time, and if you sit around waiting for the revolution to come, you will end up like the socialists who never win any elections and achieve nothing for decades.

No, we do not need to overthrow all of capitalism overnight, or solve "democracy", or whatever it is that you are advocating for, before we take any action to improve society.

That is code for "just don't do anything except LARP and complain, and attack anyone who actually is accomplishing things". Its a useless philosophy.