We are a community dedicated to playing and developing libre games, that is videogames and board games with free/libre software and algorithms, and free/libre artistic assets (models, musics). We believe [software](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html) and [culture](https://artlibre.org/faq_eng/) should be free as part of a global struggle for freedom and equality online and offline. We aim to become a meta-community that can bring closer smaller communities. We don't want to become a big central organization, but rather a network of organic initiatives scattered throughout cyberspace.
For example, we'd like to bring players alongside game developers and designers, as well as contributors to libre games launchers like [Athenaeum](https://gitlab.com/librebob/athenaeum) and [GameHub](https://github.com/tkashkin/GameHub). We believe this approach can enrich and empower the entire libre gaming ecosystem.
We are just getting started. Feel free to contribute new ideas and feedback by [contacting us](#contact). Check out [the preliminary notes](https://hribhrib.at:5443/upload/5035aee454f8553c88bd1f7623218485341099ed/dZSQFC3lP1lMmTQFyfLKQFBBDIC4tOrQ41Js4nzn/firstthoughts.txt) to our first meeting, as well as the [first meeting's minutes](https://md.roflcopter.fr/libregaming-1). Below, you will find the table of content to navigate this document:
[ToC]
# Communication
- **Domain name:** following a [public poll](https://webapp.oulu.fi/framadate/adminstuds.php?poll=Vmv6hF1oJ9ain1SIusvq7qk8), we went with `libregaming.org` (see [previous name poll](https://poll.disroot.org/LZwvudXCHyBvDY2d) and [discussion](https://paste.debian.net/1204068/))
- **Privacy:** While we defend privacy online, our chatrooms are public spaces and may be logged accordingly
- **Moderation:** We defend free speech, which means we believe no government can tell you how to think/feel, but [doesn't mean you can engage in abusive behavior](https://xkcd.com/1357/); nazis, harassers, and other abusers are not welcome in our community
- **Color scheme:** We use <spanstyle="color: #FF8F23;">**Orange**</span> (#FF8F23) and <spanstyle="color: #4FBAD5">**Blue**</span> (#4FBAD5)
If you would like to take part in the community, please head over to the [**Contact** section](#contact).
# Community
In this section, you will find more information about what we are and what we aren't as a collective. The following information may evolve over time.
**We are:**
- a loose collective rather than a formal organization
- feel free to invite new people and share permissions with people you know
- don’t ask permission to improve things, just go ahead and see where it goes, then let it be known so that others can review what you did
- supportive of [accessibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility): everyone should be able to play games, no matter their physical or hardware/network capabilities
- encouraging existing libre games communities to join us and help improve the overall ecosystem
**We are not:**
- morally-superior purists: we want to develop a libre ecosystem, but will not judge or insult people who take part in other ecosystems
- a community where nazis and harassers are welcome
- a space to discuss non-free games and ecosystem, see Gaming Space or Linux Gaming (**TODO:** links) instead
# Contact
moved to [chat-with-us.md](https://git.libregaming.org/LibreGaming/libregaming-website/src/branch/master/chat-with-us.md)
# Services
For now, we do not provide any services as LibreGaming collectives. Below you will find a list of services we would be interested to maintain.
## Internal use
- A URL shortener
- an audio/video conferencing server? (video requires a lot of resources)
## Public use
- A website with information about libre games (maybe cooperate with [LibreGameWiki](https://libregamewiki.org/Main_Page)), and links to various related communities, as well as tutorials to selfhost your own libre game servers
- A matchmaking service/bot to find people to play with
- A chat bridging service (eg. [matterbridge](https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge)) for existing communities, to open oneself to new protocols/ecosystems
- Tooling/scripts to make it easier to selfhost libre game servers
- Subdomains on libregaming.org for new projects to get started; only for libregaming projects, because we don't want external projects to technically depend on libregaming.org?
- [Our first attempt at a website](https://matrix-client.matrix.org/_matrix/media/r0/download/matrix.org/hmdmKGDlmwrCKuWnJLxGPRgJ) (ZIP), based on [this pad](https://cryptpad.fr/code/#/2/code/edit/qFLYmH82hddBpXCDmFansp0z/embed)
- [LibreGaming space screenshot on matrix](https://freedombox.emorrp1.name/_matrix/media/r0/download/matrix.org/TqNyUvWqIgJqxIfCzaYbQGyq
) (PNG)
# External resources
- Organizing a meeting
- [planning a timezone-aware event](https://www.when2meet.com/) (alternative to framadate, **TODO:** can we selfhost it?)
- [sharing a specific time across timezones](https://time.is/compare) (**TODO:** can we selfhost it?)
- audio conferencing: [Mumble](https://mumble.org/) server on hribhrib.at (**TODO:** can we setup [mumble-web](https://github.com/Johni0702/mumble-web) client and [mumble-web-proxy](https://github.com/johni0702/mumble-web-proxy) WebRTC server?)
- Other related collectives
- [FreeGameDev.net](https://freegamedev.net) has a modern IRC server (with a public Jabber/XMPP gateway and a matchmaking bot) and a forum for libre gamedev
- [LibreGameWiki](https://libregamewiki.org/Main_Page) a wiki with detailed information about libre games
**TODO:** below are leftovers from the previous pad, what are they for? do they work?
- https://remixicon.com/ finding Apache-2.0 svg avatars (94% scale for rooms)
* pro-actively bridge to IRC but be clear that it's a degraded user experience and try to limit the sheer number of rooms to match user expectations
* The bifrost matrix bridge to XMPP is not great, perhaps can host a public XMPP gateway to matrix instead?
* matrix-bifrost is the only xmpp-matrix bridge in both ways
* it's also not good on xmpp->matrix side, at least when using the official matrix.org gateway
* Discussion (long) about Discord: https://matrix.to/#/!qLhNfILESSCaasbRWB:freedombox.emorrp1.name/$pES_yrnhm4kjonxfnrPmqV2dv3CmAyWBH2eadKgZ4wM?via=freedombox.emorrp1.name&via=matrix.org&via=nordgedanken.dev
* object to Discord on principle of non-libre, centralised, compromising ideals, so shouldn't pro-actively bridge channels from here to there
* aware that some libre games have their official communities on Discord, and sadly they may not see anything wrong with that, e.g. strong network effects
* popularity isn't everything, it's ok to be a small cohesive community, but advertising libre stuff on non-libre platforms is ok for outreach
* not everyone agrees with the statements above :p
