Blue Shift: Unlocked Steampipe patch removed. blog - malortie

I requested the removal of the Blue Shift: Unlocked Steampipe patch, and the patch has been removed.

The reason for removing is due to potential infringement of Gearbox's EULA. Please note that I am not a lawyer, but I have been reading several notes about Steam and Gearbox's EULA and there are a few things that I wish to highlight.

It is important to note that Half-Life: Blue Shift is a game developed by Gearbox Software. Therefore it is Gearbox's intellectual property. According to Gearbox's EULA, it is prohibited to 'reproduce', as well as prepare 'derivative works' based on any game developed by Gearbox. Again, I am not a lawyer but from my understanding, it appears that Blue Shift: Unlocked would represent a kind of 'derivative work'. This means that the Steampipe patch I created being a re-implementation of Blue Shift: Unlocked also constitutes, by definition, a 'derivative work'.

Secondly, one thing to note in Half-Life: Blue Shift is that the file format differs from the original Half-Life file format. Back when I was working on the Steampipe patch of Blue Shift: Unlocked, I found a website detailing the differences between the file formats of the original Half-Life and the one from Blue Shift. Despite the two file formats are 99% identical, the reason for this slight difference is unknown. The thing to note is that I wrote a tool to convert Blue Shift maps files to Half-Life maps. According to Gearbox's EULA, doing such thing also seems to be prohibited.

A few years ago, I was asked about the release of the source code for the tool I wrote that allows to convert Blue Shift map files to the Half-Life map format, but since I was unsure what was Gearbox's rules and restrictions on such tool, I emailed Gearbox Software, asking for the permission to release the source code of my tool. I never received a reply regarding this subject, and simply kept the tool closed source. The discussion I had is what started me to think about potential legal issues. As time went on, I went more and more concerned about this subject, and I recently decided that I would simply remove my Steampipe patch for Blue Shift: Unlocked, as I want to avoid being at risk of pursuits.

Back then, I was not thinking about these details as much as today, and I wish to take the time to apologize to Gearbox Software for any infringement that could have potentially been made by the making of the Steampipe patch.

Finally, in the past, I made several other projects including an unfinished re-implementation of Half-Life: Opposing Force, as well as a re-implementation of Half-Life: Blue-Shift, possibly unfinished too. Due to the reasons of potential infringement to Gearbox's EULA, I also removed these projects and decided that I will wait until Gearbox publishes an official statement regarding the use of their intellectual property in Goldsource mods before making these projects available again.

Here is the list of projects that have been removed:

• Github.com - Steampipe patch of Blue Shift: Unlocked
• Github.com - Re-implementation of Half-Life: Blue Shift (possibly unfinished)
• Github.com - Unfinished re-implementation of Half-Life: Opposing force
• Github.com - Same as unfinished re-implementation of Half-Life: Opposing force, but with Visual Studio 2017 support

Until Gearbox releases an official statement about the use of their intellectual properties in Goldsource mods, I recommend anyone currently using content from the repositories and branches listed above, to stop using this content, as the use of such source code may be risky according to Gearbox's EULA.