License: Freely Redistributable Source / Freely Redistributable Software
Other (objects, etc.) concept
FRS was before Free Software, GPL & Open Source were systematically legally defined. "S" stood for "software" (binaries only) or "source".
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FRS only applies to games where the copyright holder/creator has actually referred to it as "FRS", "Freely Redistributable Software", or "Freely Redistributable Source".
"Freely Redistributable Software" means the executable and most likely the accompanying data, commonly known as "binaries", can be used, copied, and redistributed without restriction for any purpose. It also strongly implied that the source code was not available under the same terms. "Freely Redistributable Source" is everything "Freely Redistributable Software" is, plus the source code is also available and without restriction. "Freely Redistributable Software" is also called "non-modifiable FRS" (and/or shareware, and/or freeware) and likewise "Freely Redistributable Source" was called "modifiable FRS". After the GNU project defined Free Software, both uses of FRS fell out of favor. However, some games that were created after proprietary software became popular but before "Free Software" was defined, still bear an 'FRS' license to this day. This is often because the author(s) or company(s) holding the copyright no longer exist (they died in many cases), don't have records of the software's ownership (surviving spouses and children of geeks often don't know what they own nor what to do about it), or a long since orphaned the work without any official and legally binding action or statement to this effect.
Both variants of this license are vague by their very nature. So unless the author includes a specific, comprehensive and legally sound clarification, these games should be tagged with license-vague.
In most cases Freely Redistributable Source was the intended license. However, most "modifiable FRS" projects have adopted GPL or some other Free Software license (use license-frs and uvl-licensechange, and the tag for the new license in such cases)
Like GPL/Free Software that came later, there is no restriction on commercial/non-commercial use and/or profiting/not profiting from either variant of FRS. Also, there was no major legal restrictions on reverse-engineering it and in fact it was a protected activity if done in accordance with existing law. Modern law does impose major legal restrictions on reverse-engineering even to the point of severely restricting or even forbidding such activity being done to these very old softwares at this time.
Freely Redistributable Source can be indicated with the sourcecodeavailable OR sourcecodeincluded tags together with license-frs. Plus a "source" in the license-frs tag note for good measure.
Freely Redistributable Software can be indicated with the license-frs and license-proprietary tags together. Plus a "Software" in the license-frs tag note for good measure. The software may also be additionally referred to as "shareware", "freeware", or other such variant in the game entry data or any of the description fields of the game entry.
"Freely Redistributable Software" means the executable and most likely the accompanying data, commonly known as "binaries", can be used, copied, and redistributed without restriction for any purpose. It also strongly implied that the source code was not available under the same terms. "Freely Redistributable Source" is everything "Freely Redistributable Software" is, plus the source code is also available and without restriction. "Freely Redistributable Software" is also called "non-modifiable FRS" (and/or shareware, and/or freeware) and likewise "Freely Redistributable Source" was called "modifiable FRS". After the GNU project defined Free Software, both uses of FRS fell out of favor. However, some games that were created after proprietary software became popular but before "Free Software" was defined, still bear an 'FRS' license to this day. This is often because the author(s) or company(s) holding the copyright no longer exist (they died in many cases), don't have records of the software's ownership (surviving spouses and children of geeks often don't know what they own nor what to do about it), or a long since orphaned the work without any official and legally binding action or statement to this effect.
Both variants of this license are vague by their very nature. So unless the author includes a specific, comprehensive and legally sound clarification, these games should be tagged with license-vague.
In most cases Freely Redistributable Source was the intended license. However, most "modifiable FRS" projects have adopted GPL or some other Free Software license (use license-frs and uvl-licensechange, and the tag for the new license in such cases)
Like GPL/Free Software that came later, there is no restriction on commercial/non-commercial use and/or profiting/not profiting from either variant of FRS. Also, there was no major legal restrictions on reverse-engineering it and in fact it was a protected activity if done in accordance with existing law. Modern law does impose major legal restrictions on reverse-engineering even to the point of severely restricting or even forbidding such activity being done to these very old softwares at this time.
Freely Redistributable Source can be indicated with the sourcecodeavailable OR sourcecodeincluded tags together with license-frs. Plus a "source" in the license-frs tag note for good measure.
Freely Redistributable Software can be indicated with the license-frs and license-proprietary tags together. Plus a "Software" in the license-frs tag note for good measure. The software may also be additionally referred to as "shareware", "freeware", or other such variant in the game entry data or any of the description fields of the game entry.
Parent group
Games by year
The first License: Freely Redistributable Source / Freely Redistributable Software video game was released in 2000.
Platforms
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