It’s amazing what a difference a little bit of time can make: Two years after kicking off what looked to be a long-shot campaign to push back on the practice of shutting down server-dependent videogames once they’re no longer profitable, Stop Killing Games founder Ross Scott and organizer Moritz Katzner appeared in front of the European Parliament to present their case—and it seemed to go very well.
Digital Fairness Act: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14622-Digital-Fairness-Act/F33096034_en
I know what open source means.
A group that wants to host that game server is eventually going to need to fix it, or adapt it to new software / hardware if we expect it to be able to run in perpetuity. They will need to be able to modify that source code to do so.
So the game publisher can’t just publish one final compiled package “for people to use.” The software has to be able to be maintained, not just used. And if we expect the software to survive over time, it will need a community not just one group. Open source is the only thing that would allow the game publisher to walk away from it, but allow the software to live on.
I’d prefer an open source solution too, but tbh, there are other (more lazy) ways for the publisher, like sharing the APIs specifications so the people can make their own server, i hope that the EU will take the open source approach tho