WineHQ AppDB and NoCD-Patches

[Tim Schumacher]

On 18.06.19 19:35, Rosanne DiMesio wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 16:17:19 +0200
> Tim Schumacher <timschumi at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>> I am writing here because I have a question concerning AppDB reports and
>> the usage of NoCD-Patches for games.
>>
> The issue of whether test reports based on NoCD patches should even be accepted in the AppDB has never been discussed, at least not in the time I've been here. I'm inclined to fall into the "shouldn't" camp, but as a practical matter, the AppDB was already full of such reports when I became an admin 10+ years ago, so purging them now would not be easy.

The main point is that even on Windows (well, at least on Vista or newer) you'd
need a NoCD patch to run the game, else I wouldn't have asked this question in
the first place.

>
>>
>> Now the question is, if I update an app's page in the DB ([1]), is it ok
>> if I list something like the following (assuming the game works properly
>> at some point, excluding the copy protection):
>>
>>       What works:
>>         - Installation
>>         - Starting the game (except if the copy protection is active)
>>         - ...
>>         - ...
>>
> Not sure what you mean by "update an app's page." If you mean the app or version description, test report data shouldn't go in there at all.

I meant the test report for a specific version, not the description. Sorry
for being unclear, I'm just not quite up-to-date on the terminology yet.

> And no, you should never mention NoCD cracks in the app or version descriptions, nor should you ever accept NoCD "versions" as separate version entries. As for accepting test reports that used NoCD cracks, unless and until we reach a consensus that such reports should be prohibited, I'd say that is at your discretion as a maintainer. If you do decide to accept such reports, do not accept any with links to cracks or explicit instructions on how to obtain and/or use them.

I wasn't planning to do any of those things. I was just planning to say something like
"Game doesn't start if it has the StarForce copy protection", which would imply that the
Steam version works (and any other version if they manage to remove the protection _somehow_).

I was never going to mention any cracks or going to link to them (or allow any test data
that does).

>
>>
>> However, apart from the missing copy protection driver in the
>> Steam version, it isn't really known if and what changed between
>> v1.1.0.0 CD and v1.1.0.0 Steam. Would it still be fine to merge
>> "Steam" and "v1.1.0.0" in the AppDB (which is why I chose the wording
>> "if the copy protection is active"), which are currently listed
>> seperately?
>>
> No, don't merge them. We list Steam (and GOG) versions separately from CD/DVD versions precisely because there are differences, copy protection being one of them.
>

Alright then. I was just confused because they seem to be exactly the same version
(except for the copy protection of course), down to the version number.
Based on the responses I have been getting, I'm going to keep the versions
and ratings as-is, renaming the "1.x.0.0" versions to "1.x.0.0 CD/DVD"
to avoid future confusion.

Tim